Right Groups Call For Binding Treaty To Ban 'Killer Robots'

Nations must swiftly adopt a legally-binding treaty to ban autonomous weapons and keep human control over the use of force a necessity in the battlefield, a report from the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots said

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th August, 2020) Nations must swiftly adopt a legally-binding treaty to ban autonomous weapons and keep human control over the use of force a necessity in the battlefield, a report from the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots said.

According to the report, published Monday by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a growing list of countries is beginning to see the need to ban the development and use of so-called "killer robots." But a broader, international agreement was needed to preemptively prohibit what the HRW called a "grave threat to humanity that deserves urgent multilateral action."

The report catalogues 97 nations' stances by examining legislative and diplomatic actions in this area. It showed that� China, Israel, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States are investing heavily in the development of various autonomous weapons systems while around 30 countries have called to ban them outright.

According to the report, the United States and Russia have acknowledged the gravity of the threat but have so far refused to enforce prohibitions on killer robots. China, meanwhile, has backed banning the use of autonomous weapons but not their development.

"Human control in decision-making is now regarded as essential to the legality and acceptability of weapons systems. Most of the countries we've spoken to date do see a need for regulation," Mary Wareham, coordinator of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and arms division advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said in a video address released to accompany the report.

A prospective standalone treaty could be based on the protocol of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), which was first held on the international level in 2014, the report said, but although the talks were formalized in 2016, they have yielded little in the way of a lasting multilateral outcome.

In addition to broadening international agreement to ban killer robots, the report called on individual countries to pass domestic law and military edicts to prohibit the development, research and deployment of these autonomous weapons.

The report was released to coincide with the intended launch date of the 2020 CCW, which was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.