International Law Regulation Of Autonomous Weapons System

Autonomous weapons(also known as lethal autonomous weapons or killing robots)can independently search,identify and attack targets without human intervention.If autonomous weapons are introduced into "combat space",the nature of future wars will be deeply affected.However,future autonomous weapons will not be subject to space and time constraints,cope with a series of rapidly changing situations,and may directly attack humanity.The operation of autonomous weapons does not depend on human beings.If human beings break away from the process of operating weapons,the question of whether autonomous weapons can comply with international humanitarian law will arise.Whether the principle of distinction and proportionality can be observed or not,as well as the distribution of responsibilities,have begun to attract the attention of international law scholars.In the first chapter,the author introduces the current definition of autonomous weapons.At present,international community has not formed a clear and unified understanding of the definition of autonomous weapons yet.The fundamental reason for differences among countries lies in their respective national interests.Intelligent and unmanned equipment has shown its unique advantages in modern military operations.Technologically advanced countries do not want to restrict the development of their own autonomous weapon technology,so they tend to limit their own weapons to future weapons systems,thus avoiding the existing unmannedequipment from being controlled by international community.For example,the United States emphasizes that its existing unmanned equipment belongs to automated weapons but not autonomous weapons,so these weapons will not be subject to the restrictions issued by United States Department of Defense.In order to avoid the disadvantageous situation in future wars in which people are equipped against unmanned systems,it is expected to expand the scope of autonomous weapons and restrict the deployment and application of such weapons through restrictive clauses.Most small and medium-sized developing countries do not give a clear definition of autonomous weapons,but tend to believe that autonomous weapons can not comply with the principles of distinction,proportionality and necessity of international humanitarian law,and call for the ban of the development and deployment of autonomous weapons.At present,more than 90 countries have the capability of autonomous weapons or related technologies represented by military UAV equipment.Highly autonomous control is the development trend of autonomous weapons.In the future,autonomous weapons may partly or completely replace human beings in battlefield.All the frameworks and rules of international humanitarian law are designed according to man-made standards.The emergence of autonomous weapons will naturally lead to great uncertainty.The inherent lag of law makes the current law of armed conflict face great challenges in regulating this new mode of operation.In the second chapter,the challenge of autonomous weapons to international humanitarian law.First of all,the author describes the nature of autonomous weapons changing war.War is a struggle between nations through armed forces.Private persons belonging not directly or indirectly to the armed forces of the belligerent countries do not participate in the war;they neither attack nor defend;therefore,they should not be attacked.Fighters are legitimate targets;civilians must not be targeted.The emergence of autonomous weapons blurs the boundaries between combatants and weapons,and their identification has aroused heated discussion.At the same time,the emergence of autonomous weapons has exacerbated the asymmetry of war.Countries with strong military strength gain military advantages by means of their own weapons,thus putting the warring parties in an unequal position.Then the authoranalyses the challenge of autonomous weapons to international humanitarian law,and elaborates the principle of proportionality and distinction of international humanitarian law and the Marton clause in detail.By analyzing the characteristics of autonomous weapons,it is concluded that autonomous weapons do not conform to these basic principles of international humanitarian law.The third chapter describes the regulation of autonomous weapons.Autonomous weapons belong to weapons that should be prohibited in principle.The emergence of autonomous weapons indicates the possibility of dehumanization of fatal decision-making,which essentially touches the most sensitive nerve of human beings:the deprivation of the right to decide whether to live or not from human hands-so in any case,the legitimacy of such acts in law and morality will not be questioned.However,the rapid development of social science and technology today brings about the continuous innovation of arms technology,and the development of autonomous weapons is impossible to stop.Two conditions for conditional use are put forward:one is that when a country is defending itself against death,only the use of weapons can save the country.The second is that both sides have their own weapons.The former draws on the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.The latter is derived from the characteristics of war and the principle of equivalence.Section 3 introduces the responsibility of illegal use of autonomous weapons,and analyses it from two perspectives of state responsibility and individual responsibility.In terms of personal responsibility,there are commander responsibility,that is,to assume commander responsibility and product responsibility,that is to say,to let designer or manufacturer assume product responsibility.This paper analyses the advantages and disadvantages of different theories.However,few people have explored State responsibility.States are in the best position to minimize the possible violation of international law by their weapons,and appear to be the most reprehensible actors in a moral sense.The author discusses the situation that the state assumes responsibility.The state is the subject of international law.Therefore,in view of the illegal acts of the state in war,the first thing to be studied is the possibility of punishing the state.The form of stateresponsibility is restricting sovereignty,compensation and so on.A country causes serious damage to other countries because of the use of autonomous weapons,such as causing serious casualties in other countries and causing economic losses,it should bear the form of responsibility of limited sovereignty.This kind of responsibility is undoubtedly strict for the state,but it is this kind of strict responsibility that makes the autonomous weapons more cautious.The responsibility of the state to compensate makes people aware of the fact that the widespread and frequent use of autonomous weapons will certainly lead to some violations of international law.If countries choose to use autonomous weapons regardless of these risks,and if they realize that they will be held accountable for war crimes committed by autonomous weapons,they will weigh the costs of violations and the benefits of using autonomous weapons and ensure that the weapons they use do not violate international law.The military advantages of autonomous weapons in battlefield,such as reducing the casualties of fighters,precise strikes and more covert attacks,determine that such weapons will be put into battlefield one day.Autonomous weapons have not yet served in real armed conflicts,and the actual impact is incalculable.Therefore,it is very important to discuss the regulation of these weapons.Chapter IV puts forward suggestions on how to regulate autonomous weapons.The author suggests that if a standardized convention to regulate autonomous weapons can be introduced in the future,the following two points can be used to regulate it.In order to build and improve the review mechanism of independent weapons research and development,first of all,it is necessary to report to the United Nations Security Council.The United Nations Security Council has the responsibility of maintaining international peace and security.Reporting the results of the weapons review to the Security Council enables the Council to have a comprehensive understanding of the current situation of weapons development and to correctly predict the impact of the birth of such new weapons on the current international situation.Moreover,this record is only conducted within the Security Council.Members will strictly abide by the obligation of confidentiality.2.Establish a system of accountability for sanctioning the illegal use of autonomous weapons.The commander's instructions for deploying autonomousweapons are inadequate or incorrect,which may result in casualties.The criteria for the use of autonomous weapons should provide specific guidance to commanders on the legitimate use of weapons.How to use weapons correctly will solve the problem of accountability.Finally,the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court can be expanded appropriately.The existing rules of the Rome Statute concerning restrictions on the use of weapons but the provisions of this article are relatively closed.The author suggests that arms should be relaxed to make open provisions so that the use of prohibited weapons in violation of the principle of distinction and proportionality or the principle of international humanitarian law,which belongs to the meaning of this article,constitutes a war crime.Thus,criminal acts caused by the illegal use of autonomous weapons can be attributed to the International Criminal Court.Finally,from the perspective of our own country,this paper elaborates the idea of human destiny community and gives full play to China's role in this framework.