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20 October 2015 New York PRESS RELEASE: Time for More Serious Action on Killer Robots – Decision on the Way Forward Due 13 November After two years of multilateral talks on questions relating to ‘lethal autonomous weapons systems’…

The leadership of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots will be in New York on 19-20 October to conduct outreach at the UN General Assembly’s annual First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, which opened on 8 October and is chaired by Ambassador Karel van Oostrom, permanent representative of the Netherlands to the UN in New York. Nations are not expected to take any formal decisions on autonomous weapons at this month-long meeting, but for the third year in a row, many are using the opportunity to express their views on autonomous weapons in their statements. (See the extracts posted below)

Peace Movement Aotearoa, co-founder and coordinator of the Aotearoa New Zealand Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, convened a forum in Wellington this week to consider, among other issues, the challenges posed by fully autonomous weapons and call for a preemptive ban. In recent weeks several New Zealanders or "Kiwis" have endorsed the call to ban these weapons that would select or detect their own targets, using force without further human intervention. However, the New Zealand government is sticking with a 'non-position' when it comes to articulating its views on the the matter, saying it is in “listening mode.”

Japan commemorates the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, respectively. These attacks killed approximately 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki, mostly civilians. Ever since then, humankind has been forced to coexist with nuclear weapons. The fear of nuclear war will remain until nuclear weapons are prohibited and their stocks destroyed, but imagine if we could have stopped their development and averted the tragedy in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

More than 3,000 artificial intelligence researchers, scientists, and related professionals have signed an open letter released in Buenos Aires on 28 July 2015 calling for a ban on autonomous weapons that select and engage targets without human intervention, thereby swelling the ranks of the rapidly growing global movement to address the weapons. The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots welcomes the call, which is available on the website of the Future of Life Institute. The letter is being presented today (28 July 2015) at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

After deliberating for two years on questions relating to "lethal autonomous weapons systems," the time has come for states to commit to a more substantive process aimed at achieving an outcome that addresses the multiple concerns raised over the weapons. Nations are due to decide on 13 November 2015 if talks on this topic should continue next year at the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva. An ambitious mandate is needed now if states are to act with the urgency this issue demands. The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is calling for a new international instrument to preemptively ban the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons, achieved through a new CCW protocol or another process. It urges nations to agree to a mandate in November that steps up the discussions by establishing a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE).

This week at the Convention on Conventional Weapons in Geneva, states have held their deepest and richest deliberations to date on the concerns over autonomous weapons systems. 

A second round of multilateral talks on concerns over weapons systems that would select and attack targets without further human intervention opened on Monday morning at the United Nations (UN) in Geneva. The meeting of experts on “lethal autonomous weapons systems” is considering questions relating to the emerging technology of these weapons, but there is not yet a negotiating mandate. Based in large part on this week’s talks, states will decide at the CCW’s annual meeting on 13 November 2015 on whether and how to continue the talks which saw the first experts meeting held in May 2014.

13 April 2015 Geneva PRESS RELEASE: Time to Move From Talk to Action on Killer Robots – Second United Nations meeting on the subject opens in Geneva Concerns about the prospect of weapons systems that would select…