IEDs and the Mine Ban Convention: a minefield of definitions?

September 17, 2019, Conduct of Hostilities / Law and Conflict / Weapons
Wen Zhou & Andrea Raab

The year 2019 marks the 20th anniversary of the entry into force of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. It will also see the ...

Courage, responsibility and the path towards a world without nuclear weapons: a message to youth

August 21, 2019, Conduct of Hostilities / Humanitarian Action / Law and Conflict / Weapons
Magnus Løvold

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted in July 2017, is the first ...

Legal regulation of AI weapons under international humanitarian law: A Chinese perspective

May 2, 2019, Artificial Intelligence and Armed Conflict / Law and Conflict / Weapons
Qiang Li & Dan Xie

Arguably, international humanitarian law (IHL) evolves with the development of emerging technologies. The history of ...

Safety net or tangled web: Legal reviews of AI in weapons and war-fighting

April 18, 2019, Artificial Intelligence and Armed Conflict / Law and Conflict / New Technologies / Weapons
Netta Goussac

Editor’s note: For those interested in the topic of legal reviews of weapons, it is ...

Enhanced distinction: The need for a more focused autonomous weapons targeting discussion at the LAWS GGE

March 28, 2019, Law and Conflict / New Technologies / Weapons
John Cherry & Christopher Korpela

The meeting of the Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) has been taking place in Geneva this week. This ...

Legal reviews of weapons, means and methods of warfare involving artificial intelligence: 16 elements to consider

March 21, 2019, Artificial Intelligence and Armed Conflict / Conduct of Hostilities / Law and Conflict / New Technologies / Weapons
Dustin A. Lewis

What are some of the chief concerns in contemporary debates around legal reviews of weapons, ...

100 ratifications of the Arms Trade Treaty: Celebration and reflection

February 7, 2019, Law and Conflict / Weapons
Helen Durham

As Director of International Law and Policy, I have the privilege of regularly representing the ICRC at the United Nations and other diplomatic ...

Is arms control over emerging technologies just a peacetime luxury? Lessons learned from the First World War

January 18, 2019, History / Humanitarian Action / Law and Conflict / Weapons
Eric Germain

At the turn of the twentieth century, many engineers with fertile imaginations—from France’s Gustave Gabet ...

Machine autonomy and the constant care obligation

December 11, 2018, Autonomous Weapons / Conduct of Hostilities / Law and Conflict / New Technologies / Weapons
Chris Jenks & Rain Liivoja

The debate about the way the international community should deal with autonomous weapon systems has ...

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons one year on: Reflections from Hiroshima

September 20, 2018, Law and Conflict / Stories / Weapons
Helen Durham

Today marks one year since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was declared open for signature. Its adoption confirmed that a ...

The (im)possibility of meaningful human control for lethal autonomous weapon systems

August 29, 2018, Analysis / Autonomous Weapons / Law and Conflict / Weapons
Elke Schwarz

This week, the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) is ...

The impact of gender and race bias in AI

August 28, 2018, Analysis / Autonomous Weapons / Gender / Law and Conflict / Weapons
Noel Sharkey

Automated decision algorithms are currently propagating gender and race discrimination throughout our global community. The ...