As drone warfare expands and becomes more and more part of our everyday lives, the question of limitations on what are effectively killer robots is now becoming more pitched, with a recent move to introduce legislation to ban killer robots worldwide through the Inhumane Weapons Convention, or the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, CCW.
Killer Robots Aren’t Science Fiction. A Push to Ban Them is Growing.
Excerpt:
This year, for the first time, a majority of the 125 nations that belong to an agreement called the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, or CCW, said they wanted curbs on killer robots. But they were opposed by members that are developing these weapons, most notably the United States and Russia.
The group’s conference concluded Friday with only a vague statement about considering possible measures acceptable to all. The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a disarmament group, said the outcome fell “drastically short.”
What is the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons?
The CCW, sometimes known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention, it is a framework of rules that ban or restrict weapons considered to cause unnecessary, unjustifiable and indiscriminate suffering, such as incendiary explosives, blinding lasers and booby traps that don’t distinguish between fighters and civilians. The convention has no provisions for killer robots.
