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However, it is disappointing that the outcome text is significantly weaker than earlier drafts, following push-back on this section by a tiny minority of states, including Russia, India, the UK, and the US, during the five revisions of the Pact. As adopted, the Pact for the Future fails to identify the risks posed by autonomous weapons, and does not reflect the views of the majority of states that a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems is urgently needed.
As laid out in the Pact, we urge member states of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) Group of Governmental Experts on lethal autonomous weapons systems (GGE LAWS) to fulfil their mandate to develop an instrument on autonomous weapons systems and complete the work of the Group “as soon as possible, preferably before the end of 2025”, as decided in the 2023 final report of the Meeting of the High Contracting Parties of the CCW. To appropriately respond to the challenges to international law posed by autonomy in weapons systems, this instrument must be legally binding and create prohibitions and regulations to ensure meaningful human control over the use of force.
In his remarks to the opening plenary of the Summit following the adoption of the Pact, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said
New technologies, including AI, are being developed in a moral and legal vacuum, without governance or guardrails. In short, our multilateral tools and institutions are unable to respond effectively to today’s political, economic, environmental and technological challenges.
He continued to say that the Pact for the Future recognises “the changing nature of conflict” and commits to steps to “govern the use of lethal autonomous weapons.”
We are at a critical point. It is clear that negotiating new international law on autonomous weapons systems is now more urgent than ever before. The UN Secretary-General and the International Committee of the Red Cross have issued a joint appeal to states to negotiate new law by 2026. It is essential to meet this deadline. As set out in the recent report on autonomous weapons systems from the UN Secretary-General, mandated by last year’s historic UNGA Resolution 78/241, autonomous weapons systems are a critical issue facing humanity and time is running out to take preventive action. The international community must start drawing lines for humanity through international law, now, and launch negotiations on a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems, to prevent the automation of killing.
Turning towards the opening of the UNGA and First Committee, all states that have recognised that autonomous weapons systems raise profound legal, ethical and humanitarian concerns must support all efforts to advance work and expand discussions on this issue, and undertake negotiations in a forum that is open to all states and civil society, and where progress cannot be blocked.
