Washington and Moscow block UN talks timetable on autonomous weapons

The United States and Russia oppose setting a timetable to negotiate new legally binding rules on autonomous weapons, days before a UN conference scheduled for 16 to 20 November in Geneva, according to The Guardian. Israel is also among the countries reluctant to support a negotiating mandate.

The conference will bring together representatives of 128 states parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and examine rules applicable to systems capable of selecting and attacking targets without human validation for each action. On 22 October, a coalition of 50 countries led by Ireland, including France, Germany, Italy, Brazil and Mexico, proposed three negotiating sessions in 2027, with a draft protocol expected at the end of the year.

Washington advocates applying existing international humanitarian law and favours national control measures, while Moscow also opposes a timetable for binding negotiations. During September discussions, the US and Russian positions led to changes to the preparatory text, including the removal of references to predictability, traceability and the design of autonomous systems, according to Human Rights Watch.

On 25 August, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and International Committee of the Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric had called on governments to adopt a legally binding instrument. The ICRC wants to ban systems designed to directly target people as well as those whose effects cannot be sufficiently anticipated, while regulating other autonomous weapons.