GENEVA: The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Mirjana Spoljaric, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), have jointly issued a pressing call for new international regulations to safeguard humanity from the potential catastrophic consequences of automatic weapons.
In a united effort, they declared that addressing the threat posed by so-called “killer robots” is a global “humanitarian priority.”
Guterres and Spoljaric urged nations to establish specific bans and constraints on automatic weapon systems by 2026 to shield present and future generations from the grave implications of their deployment. These automatic weapon systems, defined as weaponry that can select targets and apply force without human intervention, raise profound humanitarian, legal, ethical, and security concerns.
According to the leaders, the development and proliferation of such weapons have the potential to fundamentally alter the nature of warfare, contributing to global instability. They warned that these automatic systems could create a false sense of reduced risk for military forces and civilians, inadvertently escalating violence and lowering the threshold for engaging in conflicts.
The call stressed the necessity of preserving human control over the use of force, emphasizing that machines with the ability to take lives without human involvement should be prohibited under international law. Guterres and Spoljaric underscored the growing concerns due to the rising availability and sophistication of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, which could be integrated into these automatic weapons.
UN, Red Cross Calls for Ban on Automatic Weapons
Specifically, the leaders advocated for a ban on automatic weapon systems functioning unpredictably, including those controlled by machine-learning algorithms, deeming them “an unacceptably dangerous proposition.” They further called for clear restrictions on all other types of automatic weapons, specifying limits on their use, the types of targets they engage, and the scale of force applied.
While certain weapons are already prohibited or restricted under international law, the absence of a comprehensive agreement on automatic weapons has led to divergent interpretations by nations. The leaders stressed that new international rules are crucial to clarify and strengthen existing laws, emphasizing that they are “essential to avoiding terrible consequences for humanity.”
The UN and ICRC leaders urged world leaders to initiate negotiations for a new legally binding instrument to establish unequivocal prohibitions and restrictions on automatic weapon systems, with the aim to conclude these negotiations by 2026. While discussions on this matter have taken place at the UN in Geneva in recent years, countries have yet to find sufficient common ground to launch substantive negotiations.
