Statement delivered by ICRAC Vice-chair Peter Asaro to the CCW GGE Informal Session on the Chair’s Non-Paper, August 19, 2019.
“The International Committee for Robot Arms Control, which is a member of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, would like to thank the Chair for this Draft, and make the following comments and requests.
First and most importantly, we would urge the Chair to set a higher bar for the goals of this GGE and the discussions of the next two years. In particular, we would like to see the set goal to be a legally binding instrument, and not merely a “Normative Framework” of an unknown or unstated legal status. This GGE can and should begin discussing what a legally binding instrument that could effectively regulate autonomy in weapons systems might look like. Normativity could also imply ethical and moral norms, and we would welcome a broader discussion of the ethical and moral issues raised by autonomous weapons, particularly with respect to human dignity.
Further, we would like to remind the Chair that the “Guiding Principles” were developed to guide discussions of this body over the past few years, and were never meant to be a goal or outcome of those discussions. We would like to see a more substantive outcome of the current GGE.
Finally, we are concerned that the current draft does not mention “human control” much less “meaningful human control” or its other variants. This is despite the fact that many States, as well as civil society, have repeatedly expressed the view that human control is central to both understanding and regulating autonomy in weapons systems. Towards this end, ICRAC has produced a new white paper entitled “What makes human control over weapons “Meaningful”? You will find copies of this new report in the back of the room tomorrow. In it you will find a rigorous analysis of the requirements for human control in weapons, which could provide useful concepts for the elements of a treaty, including the positive obligation on states to ensure that weapons have the necessary elements of control to ensure accountable and responsible use of weapons under international law. And we hope the Chair will stand by his recent tweet, and allow this document to inform discussions of the Legal, Technical and Military work streams, as well as a much needed ethical discussion that cuts across all three.
We hope that tomorrow’s formal discussions are productive, and will continue to urge this body to work on the substantive concepts necessary to build a legally binding instrument.”