Legal Framework of discussion
Currently the discussions at the United Nations on the issue related to autonomous weapons are under the framework of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). The purpose of the Convention is to ban or restrict the use of specific types of weapons that are considered to cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or to affect civilians indiscriminately.
In 2013, the CCW Meeting of State Parties decided that a Meeting of experts should convene in 2014 to start the discussions on questions related to Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). States, NGOs (HRW, ICRAC, Art36, Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, Reaching Critical Will etc...), and UN agencies (UNIDIR) are looking into the need to regulation or ban the development and use of autonomous weapons. In 2016, the Fifth Review Conference of the High Contracting Parties to the CCW established a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on LAWS to pursue the discussions on the need for regulations or a ban.
In 2013, the CCW Meeting of State Parties decided that a Meeting of experts should convene in 2014 to start the discussions on questions related to Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). States, NGOs (HRW, ICRAC, Art36, Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, Reaching Critical Will etc...), and UN agencies (UNIDIR) are looking into the need to regulation or ban the development and use of autonomous weapons. In 2016, the Fifth Review Conference of the High Contracting Parties to the CCW established a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on LAWS to pursue the discussions on the need for regulations or a ban.