IGF 2025 Open Forum #79 Regulation of Autonomous Weapon Systems: Navigating the Legal and Ethical Imperative

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications offer a range of benefits but also challenges and risks and lead to significant transformations in many sectors including the military sector. Since more than a decade we see the development of AI-based weapon systems which have the potential to undermine both international peace and security as well as the functioning of the Internet.

The Session will discuss recent developments and new perspectives of the need for regulation of Autonomous Weapons Systems (AWS). The 79th UN General Assembly in October discussed the AWS Report of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres published in July 2024 pursuant to the UN Resolution 78/241 on “Lethal autonomous weapons systems” (LAWS), introduced by Austria in 2023, and supported by the overwhelming majority of UN member states. The UN General Assembly adopted two resolutions in 2024:

• UN Resolution 79/62 on LAWS sponsored by Austria and a cross-regional group of co-sponsors, which is aimed to intensify the AWS discussion and address those aspects of the UN SG report, that have not yet been discussed comprehensively, including from a human rights, ethical and security perspective,
• UN-Resolution 79/239 on AI in the military domain and its implications for peace and security, sponsored by the Netherlands and the Republic of Korea together with a cross-regional group of co-sponsors.

The work in the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) in the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) has continued to work on a rolling text and hopes to finalize it until the end of 2025. Further, the UN will organize a two-day multi-stakeholder informal consultation on AWS pursuant to UN-Resolution 79/62 on May, 12 – 13, 2025 in New York. The call of the UN Secretary General and the ICRC President, supported by many states, to conclude negotiations on a legally binding instrument on AWS by 2026 is still on the table.

The Open Forum will contribute to build more public awareness of the challenges around AWS in a world of new political turbulences and risks. Stakeholders from different communities will discuss the various aspects – political, legal, ethical, humanitarian, technological etc. – of the development and use of AWS and consider ideas, how to contribute to the development of a regulatory framework for autonomous weapon systems as a contribution to peace and security and the achievement of the development goals.

Onsite and online participation