United Nations: Resolution 79/L.77 adopted by the General Assembly on lethal autonomous weapons systems
On December 2, 2024, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Resolution 79/L.77 on lethal autonomous weapons systems, or “killer robots”, with 166 countries in favor, 3 against, and 15 abstentions. The resolution creates a forum to discuss the challenges posed by these weapons, which can select and attack targets without human input. Countries like Belarus, North Korea, and Russia opposed the resolution, while abstaining nations included China, Estonia, Fiji, India, Iran, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Nicaragua, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Türkiye, and Ukraine. Many of these states have been strongly investing in military applications of artificial intelligence to develop autonomous weapons systems.
The General Assembly resolution responds to concerns about the risks of autonomous weapons, such as their potential to escalate conflicts, fuel arms races, and cause humanitarian crises.
While this resolution does not mandate treaty negotiations, it calls for informal consultations in 2025 to address these issues, with participation from UN member states, international organizations, and civil society.
Despite this first step to discuss the issue, according to Mary Wareham, deputy crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch, “the challenge now is for states to move from talking about this challenge to negotiating a new treaty that provides the necessary framework to prevent a future of automated killing.”
Although there were also past discussions on lethal autonomous weapons systems, such as the one under the Convention on Conventional Weapons in 2014; they have stalled due to opposition from major military powers.
Currently, treaty proponents and supporters stress the need for clearer rules to ensure a meaningful human control over autonomous weapons systems and they hope this new UN forum will lead to binding agreements to prevent the misuse of autonomous weapons and safeguard global security.