The signatories want formal negotiations to start at the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons review conference in Geneva. Any one of 128 countries can block the decision.
Fifty countries are pushing to negotiate international rules on autonomous weapons, which select and strike targets without human approval. Governments will decide whether to open negotiations at the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons conference in Geneva on Nov. 16–20.
If governments approve negotiations, they would start writing rules on how much human judgment militaries must keep over autonomous weapons. Those rules would affect which weapons contractors and AI companies can sell to militaries.
Fifty countries say talks should start in Geneva
The conference is held every five years under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, a 1980 UN treaty that bans or restricts weapons such as land mines and blinding lasers. Its 128 members have discussed autonomous weapons under the treaty since 2013. The 50 countries want the members to launch negotiations on a new agreement covering these weapons at this review.
The 50 include France, Germany, and Brazil. The United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, and Israel did not sign, and any one of them could block the decision.
The statement called for negotiating rules without saying whether they should be legally binding. Analysts writing on Opinio Juris, an international law blog, reported in October that at least 70 countries are ready to negotiate a binding treaty. The analysts did not name the countries.
Countries agreed in September on what the rules could cover
In early September, after three years of talks, government delegates from the 128 treaty countries agreed by consensus on a list of points that future rules could cover. The list includes the first description of an autonomous weapon that all 128 countries have accepted.
The 50 countries said the list sets out how much human control and judgment these weapons need to comply with the laws of war. They called it “a solid and sufficient basis” for negotiations. They also said they were disappointed that some points from earlier drafts that they called crucial were dropped. They want those points taken up in the negotiations.
The UN and Red Cross called for a binding treaty
In August, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric called on governments to negotiate a legally binding agreement on autonomous weapons. They said the Geneva conference was the clearest chance for countries to decide to begin.
Any one country can block negotiations
At the conference, the 128 countries are expected to adopt the September points as the starting text for future work. They will then decide whether the treaty’s expert group negotiates an agreement or keeps studying the issue without negotiating, as it has since 2017. They decide by consensus, so a single country can block negotiations from starting.
