Dear Secretary of State,
Autonomous weapons systems: consultations at the UN General Assembly
We are writing to ask the Government to seize two current opportunities to make progress towards its commitments to ensure meaningful human control over autonomous weapons systems in support of peace, security, and the protection of civilians.
Firstly, on 12-13 May at the UN General Assembly in New York, states will gather for informal consultations to discuss autonomous weapons systems, as mandated by resolution 79/62.
We welcome recent remarks from the Minister for Veterans and People at the Ministry of Defence, Alistair Carns MP, stating that the Government must help “define and implement” the international “guardrails” for autonomous weapons systems and other emerging technologies. We ask how the Government will use the upcoming meetings in New York to do this.
Having voted in favour of resolution 79/62 and this consultation, we encourage the Government’s full engagement with the opportunity that the New York meetings present to advance both policy discussion and political will among the widest range of states towards international regulation. We urge the Government to use the consultations to engage constructively with other states to build the broad and cross-regional partnerships needed for an effective response. The Government should also recognise and welcome the progress that has been made in discussions on autonomous weapons systems in all forums – not only in policy discussions at the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, but also at recent regional and international conferences states have convened. Acknowledging the benefits of discussions in multiple fora, and participating actively, is a crucial step towards international regulation that will ultimately protect both civilians and UK military personnel from the risks posed by autonomous weapons systems.
The second opportunity is to clarify the implementation of the UK’s position. We are concerned about other comments made by Minister Carns, on X, regarding autonomous weapons systems and the future of warfare, where he referred to “uncrewed systems… [that] travel to their operating area, identify, select, hunt and strike targets… autonomously”. We would welcome clarification on whether this represents a change in the government’s understanding of “context-appropriate human involvement”, a concept introduced in the 2022 Defence AI Strategy, and further detail on how Government proposes meaningful human control will be maintained over such systems.
In the context of ongoing debates around international regulation – in which the UK is an active participant – and developments in national capabilities, it is essential that the Government is clear, consistent and transparent about its understanding of meaningful human control and “context-appropriate human involvement”. The standards the UK is adopting in these matters of life and death must be subject to public scrutiny.
As members of the UK campaign to Stop Killer Robots, we continue to call on the Government to show leadership and support a new international law on autonomous weapons systems. Seizing the two opportunities we have raised in this letter – active participation in the informal consultations at the UNGA and clarifying the UK position on “context appropriate human involvement”, will be important steps forward. Negotiating a legally binding instrument is an urgent task for the international community: the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable global environment makes clear common rules more important than ever for peace, security, and civilian protection.
Yours sincerely,
Andy Bailey, Campaign Coordinator, Stop Killer Robots UK
Elizabeth Minor, Advisor, Article 36
Sophie Radice, Head of Campaigns, UNA-UK
Chris Cole, Director, Drone Wars UK
Susana Klien, Chief Executive Officer, Saferworld
