New publication summarises State submissions to the UN Secretary-General’s report on autonomous weapons

Last week, on 6 August, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres released an advanced copy of his report on autonomous weapons, with the final version scheduled to be released later this month. 

This report reflects views from member States and other stakeholders on ways to address the related challenges and concerns that autonomous weapons systems raise from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives and on the role of humans in the use of force. Read the Stop Killer Robots submission to the report. 

Our research and monitoring team, Automated Decision Research (ADR), has compiled a report summarising the 58 submissions from states, state groups, and international organisations. .

This highly anticipated report was mandated following the historical adoption of the first-ever UN resolution on Autonomous Weapons at the 78th United Nations General Assembly which took place in 2023. It will help inform the framework in which autonomous weapons and their much needed regulation are discussed in UN fora going forward. 

A key takeaway from the report is the Secretary-General’s finding that ‘time is running out for the international community to take preventive action on this issue’. He also reiterated his calls for states to conclude negotiations of new international law on autonomous weapons by 2026.

Here are key findings from ADR’s review of states submissions: 

Overview:

• 91 submissions received (at the time of writing). 
• 58 submissions were made by states, groups of states (e.g. international conference outcome documents), or international organisations or unions of states (e.g. CARICOM, the European Union, ECOWAS)
• Of these 58 replies, 49 were made by individual states. 
• 32 states (at the time of writing) endorse the Chair’s Summary of the ‘Humanity at the Crossroads’ conference hosted by Austria in April 2024, which states:
  • That the ‘seriousness of risks regarding AWS require us to clarify the application of existing legal rules and to establish clear prohibitions and regulations to preserve the human element in the use of force’;
  • That ‘Targeting people is a most pressing ethical issue’;
  • That ‘AWS that would function by distinguishing certain groups of people from others would be liable to problems of bias in the datasets and algorithms that they are built on’.

Moving toward a legally binding instrument (i.e. new international law to regulate and/or ban autonomous weapons systems): 

• 35 of the 58 submissions made by individual states/groups of states/international organisations or unions of states express clear support for the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems. 
• 47 of these 58 submissions express support for some form of prohibitions and/or regulations.
• 36 of these submissions express support for a standard of human control over the use of autonomous weapons systems. 
• 12 of these submissions reference the need for a prohibition on autonomous weapons systems designed or used to target people. 
• The majority of submissions recognise that autonomous weapons and the use of artificial intelligence for military purposes raise concerns for the international community, and numerous states expressed a preference for the term ‘autonomous weapons systems’ over ‘lethal autonomous weapons systems’.

Read the full ADR report