The global governance of lethal autonomous weapons and the future of warfare

Diego Badell and Edward Hunter Christie

Chapter 19 in Handbook on the Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence, 2026, pp 315-335 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter addresses the parallel emergence of autonomous military systems and of attempts to regulate them at the international level. The early 2010s saw early-stage efforts towards international negotiations, at a time when the eventual emergence of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) was a predictable but still distant prospect from a technological perspective. While member states of the United Nations did address the matter over many years through the Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS, reaching a normative agreement has proved elusive. From 2022 onwards, the occurrence of a major interstate war – Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine – has provided a decisive impetus for the development of LAWS. Ukraine's imperative need to ensure its national survival, and Russia's near-unlimited levels of ambition and aggression, have been major strategic accelerators for the development of increasingly autonomous weapons.

Keywords: Arms Control; Drones; Autonomous Weapons; Laws; United Nations; War Of Aggression; International Negotiations; Fragmentation; Ukraine; Russia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035338573
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