A) Objectives of the pledge:
Autonomous weapons systems raise profound challenges from a legal, ethical and security perspective and must be regulated. The Vienna multi-stakeholder Conference “Humanity at the Crossroads: Autonomous Weapons Systems and the challenge of regulation” on 29 and 30 April 2024 involving over 1,000 participants including from 144 states aimed to generate high-level attention and momentum for regulation as well as useful input for states and other stakeholders for their submissions of views to the UNSG report on LAWS presented at the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly in 2024.
Each signing State and National Society pledges to continue to work with urgency and with all interested stakeholders for an international legal instrument to regulate autonomous weapons systems.
This pledge relates to the theme of Commission I at the 34th International Conference of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent (RCRC Conference) entitled “Building a Global Culture of Respect for International Humanitarian Law.” It also contributes to the implementation of the Resolution “Toward a universal culture of compliance with international humanitarian law”, in particular OP7 which “urges States to identify opportunities to promote compliance with IHL by other actors […] by using diplomatic dialogue […] and other means of influence and State power to promote compliance.”
B) Action plan:
Each signing State and National Society will continue to work with urgency and with all interested stakeholders for an international legal instrument to regulate autonomous weapons systems, especially for the prohibition of such systems that cannot be used in conformity with international law, in particular international humanitarian law, and cannot be used with meaningful human control, and to regulate other autonomous weapons systems in a way so as to ensure a meaningful level of human control over such systems. To this end, each signing State and National Society will actively engage with all relevant stakeholders and in all relevant fora.
C) Indicators for measuring progress:
Progress will be measured by:
- Meetings/events/conferences attended/organised and initiatives launched/supported.
D) Resource implications:
The financial and human resources needed for the above-mentioned measures will be provided by each signing State and National Society.