Autonomous Weapon Systems and Human Control

The deployment of autonomous weapon systems (‘aws’) in military operations is a major concern for the international community. While the military in particular argues that increased autonomy mitigates the risks of death and injury for civilians, scientists and civil society emphasise that humans still have to play a decisive role when increasingly outsourcing core competences to machines. In 2017, a Group of Governmental Experts (‘gge’) met for the first time to discuss legal and ethical issues of aws. The centrepiece of the debate was (and still is) the role humans play in an increasingly automated battlefield. In the past couple of years, consensus has been emerging on the necessity of maintaining human control. It will be argued in this contribution that human control (in abstracto) is not merely a political demand. It is also a legal obligation derived from international humanitarian law (‘ihl’). This contribution seeks to analyse relevant rules of ihl with a specific focus on the legal nature of the Martens Clause arguing that human control (in abstracto) is not only politically desired but that it is legally required. That being said, the various concepts aiming to implement and operationalise human control (in concreto) will be examined with a view to offering solutions for a potential regulatory framework on aws at the United Nations (‘UN’) in Geneva.