Recommended Citation
Laurie R. Blank,
New Treaty Law on Autonomous Weapons? An Opportunity to Reframe the Discourse,
57 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L.
223
(2025)
Available at:
https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol57/iss1/20
Abstract
Calls for a new treaty for autonomous weapons—or for any other new technology—stem from a concern at the most basic level: the concern that LOAC’s existing treaties are not sufficient to fulfill their core purposes of protecting civilians and other vulnerable persons and regulating the conduct of hostilities. Could treaties drafted in 1949—when air power was new and space a distant dream, when the first operational computer ran its first program and navigation relied on the compass and sextant—be sufficient for the complexities and challenges of the electromagnetic spectrum, artificial intelligence, quantum mechanics, machine learning, cyber, anti-satellite weapons, and other new technologies and capabilities lying just beyond the edges of our imagination? These calls for, or questions about, a new Geneva Convention for autonomous weapons and artificial intelligence capabilities are an ideal opening to reexamine how artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies can be positive developments for the protection of persons during armed conflict. This Article analyzes the concerns about autonomous systems that appear to be animating calls for new treaty law— whether weapons-focused or broader—and looks at those concerns within the context of what the Geneva Conventions are designed, and aspire, to accomplish. In so doing, this analysis seeks to lay bare several issues that lie at the core of the commonly expressed discomfort with autonomous systems, including, but not limited to: who is the addressee of obligations regarding such systems; how should we define the content of obligations applied to an ever evolving capability; how should we define the systems or capability to which such new treaty law would apply; and what relationship between humans and autonomous systems can and should be covered by such new treaty law and could the treaty encompass unforeseen developments in that respect. Although a new treaty remains solely aspirational at the present time, understanding the concerns it would seek to alleviate and imagining how it would work is a useful exercise for refreshing our approach to the issue of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence in the armed conflict arena and including in this conversation the positive contributions that such systems could offer in the armed conflict setting. (Abstract from author.)