Abstract
The pace of development with respect to robotic weapons systems is staggering. Often formulated in the context of a desire of the ‘haves’ States to minimize battlefield casualties and to reduce monetary costs, technological advancement holds a number of ramifications for the law of armed conflict. Specifically, as technology introduces the possibility of increasingly autonomous forms of robotic weapon systems, the implications of augmenting precision while removing, for all intents and purposes, direct control by or involvement of human beings (‘in the loop’) must be examined, along with differentiated responsibilities of the ‘haves’ versus the ‘have-nots’. The present article takes as a foundation the international humanitarian law principle of precaution, as codified in Article 57 of Additional Protocol I, to assess various aspects of the applicability of the relevant provisions to these new weapons systems, and in particular draws conclusions as to how precaution could influence future developments.
Highlights
Most people are aware of the operations that involved the use of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), known as drones.[1]
These latter two issues are highly relevant, but fall outside the scope of this article, which only looks at situations of international and non-international armed conflict governed by the rules of international humanitarian law (IHL), and these topics have been dealt with extensively in a number of strong studies.[8]
The logic behind using the term ‘weapon system’ for the purposes of the present study is to demonstrate that developments in automated robotic technologies are creating means of warfare that are platforms for carrying out operations, as opposed to ‘weapons’, or currently deployed UCAVs that are labelled as ‘carriers’
Summary
Most people are aware of the operations that involved the use of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), known as drones.[1]. The MQ-I Predator aircraft, for instance, is flown remotely by human operators ostensibly fulfilling the piloting role within the military chain of command structure In this case, a person who is able to review incoming data remains ‘in the loop’ to make decisions based on the data, and to act upon and be responsible for subsequent actions, such as carrying out an attack. The final section will draw conclusions, including as to the potential influence of the principle of precaution on the future development and use of robotic warfare technologies It is not the intention of this article to be an exhaustive study of all aspects of the law of armed conflict relevant to the military use of robot technology, which would require a dissertation-sized manuscript, but rather to contribute to the international legal discourse
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