Autonomous Weapon Systems and International Law: What’s at stake for global security and governance? This discussion examines the legal and ethical challenges of Lethal Autonomous Weapons and their implications for the Global Majority.
Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS), technologies capable of selecting and engaging targets without meaningful human control, are inching closer to becoming reality. Yet, artificial intelligence is already reshaping warfare. The problematic use of AI-driven targeting tools and algorithmic decision-making systems is raising urgent questions about accountability, legality, and moral responsibility in modern warfare. Designed and deployed largely by powerful states, these technologies risk entrenching existing inequalities and automating violence far beyond the battlefield.
In this video essay, speakers with diverse backgrounds of international law, diplomacy, and transnational civil society unpack the ethical, legal and political consequences of delegating life-and-death decisions to machines. They challenge the myth of technological neutrality and expose how bias and systemic injustice are embedded in the design and use of AI in warfare.
As international regulation of LAWS evolves slowly, the need to ensure the continuity of meaningful human control has never been more urgent. This film is a call to reflect, resist and reimagine how we confront the militarisation of artificial intelligence.
Featuring (in order of appearance):
- Laura Varella, Disarmament Programme Associate, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
- Prof. Mary Ellen O'Connell, Professor of Law and Professor of International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
- Adedeji Ebo, Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA)
- Richard Moyes, Director at Article 36 and Steering Committee Member at Campaign to Stop Killer Robots
- Ishmael Bhila, Doctoral Researcher at Paderborn University and Stop Killer Robots Campaigner
- María Pía Devoto, Director at Association for Public Policies (Argentina)
Produced by the Global Unit for Human Security of Heinrich Böll Foundation. Videographer: Christian Lendl
Autonomous Weapon Systems, International Law and Global Majority - Human Security Unit | Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
Watch on YouTube
This article first appeared here: us.boell.org