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	A critical opportunity to ban killer robots – while we still can by Amnesty, Campaign to Stop Killer Robots   Oct. 2023   In a joint appeal today, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, and the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, are calling on political leaders to urgently establish new international rules on autonomous weapon systems, to protect humanity.   Today we are joining our voices to address an urgent humanitarian priority. The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) call on States to establish specific prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapon systems, to shield present and future generations from the consequences of their use. In the current security landscape, setting clear international red lines will benefit all States.   Autonomous weapon systems – generally understood as weapon systems that select targets and apply force without human intervention – pose serious humanitarian, legal, ethical and security concerns.   Their development and proliferation have the potential to significantly change the way wars are fought and contribute to global instability and heightened international tensions. By creating a perception of reduced risk to military forces and to civilians, they may lower the threshold for engaging in conflicts, inadvertently escalating violence.   We must act now to preserve human control over the use of force. Human control must be retained in life and death decisions. The autonomous targeting of humans by machines is a moral line that we must not cross. Machines with the power and discretion to take lives without human involvement should be prohibited by international law.   Our concerns have only been heightened by the increasing availability and accessibility of sophisticated new and emerging technologies, such as in robotics and Artificial Intelligence technologies, that could be integrated into autonomous weapons.   The very scientists and industry leaders responsible for such technological advances have also been sounding the alarm. If we are to harness new technologies for the good of humanity, we must first address the most urgent risks and avoid irreparable consequences.   This means prohibiting autonomous weapon systems which function in such a way that their effects cannot be predicted. For example, allowing autonomous weapons to be controlled by machine learning algorithms – fundamentally unpredictable software which writes itself – is an unacceptably dangerous proposition.   In addition, clear restrictions are needed for all other types of autonomous weapons, to ensure compliance with international law and ethical acceptability. These include limiting where, when and for how long they are used, the types of targets they strike and the scale of force used, as well as ensuring the ability for effective human supervision, and timely intervention and deactivation.   Despite the increasing reports of testing and use of various types of autonomous weapon systems, it is not too late to take action. After more than a decade of discussions within the United Nations, including in the Human Rights Council, under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and at the General Assembly, the foundation has been laid for the adoption of explicit prohibitions and restrictions. Now, States must build on this groundwork, and come together constructively to negotiate new rules that address the tangible threats posed by these weapon technologies.   International law, particularly international humanitarian law, prohibits certain weapons and sets general restrictions on the use of all others, and States and individuals remain accountable for any violations. However, without a specific international agreement governing autonomous weapon systems, States can hold different views about how these general rules apply. New international rules on autonomous weapons are therefore needed to clarify and strengthen existing law. They will be a preventive measure, an opportunity to protect those that may be affected by such weapons and essential to avoiding terrible consequences for humanity.   We call on world leaders to launch negotiations of a new legally binding instrument to set clear prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapon systems and to conclude such negotiations by 2026. We urge Members States to take decisive action now to protect humanity.   Feb. 2023   More than 30 countries call for international legal controls on killer robots. (Amnesty)   Reacting to the signing of a communique by more than 30 countries in Costa Rica today calling for international law including prohibitions and regulations in relation to the development and use of autonomous weapons systems, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said:   “The development of autonomy in weapons is accelerating, and the growing application of new Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technologies is a deeply worrying development. These machines risk automating killing, treating it as a technical undertaking which raises human rights risks as well as humanitarian, legal and ethical concerns. Autonomous machines will make life and death decisions without empathy or compassion.   “Autonomous weapon systems lack the ability to analyse the intentions behind people’s actions. They cannot make complex decisions about distinction and proportionality, determine the necessity of an attack, refuse an illegal order, or potentially recognize an attempt to surrender, which are vital for compliance with international human rights law and international humanitarian law.   “These new weapons technologies are at risk of further endangering civilians and civilian infrastructure in conflict. Amnesty International remains concerned about the potential human rights risks that increasing autonomy in policing and security equipment poses too, such as systems which use data and algorithms to predict crime.   “It has never been more urgent to draw legal red lines around the production and use of autonomous weapons systems to ensure we maintain meaningful human control over the use of force.   “Amnesty International supports the call made by governments from Latin American and Caribbean countries today for binding international legal controls on these weapons and welcomes the decision to work in alternative forums, beyond the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) where talks have stalled, to advance this new law.”   http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/02/more-than-30-countries-call-for-international-legal-controls-on-killer-robots/ http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/may-2024/unregulated-autonomous-weapons-systems-pose-risk-africa   Dec. 2022   The Future of Artificial Intelligence, by Mary Wareham. (Human Rights Watch)   Ten years ago, Human Rights Watch united with other civil society groups to co-found the Stop Killer Robots campaign in response to emerging military technologies in which machines would replace human control in the use of armed force.   There is now widespread recognition that weapons systems that select and attack targets without meaningful human control represent a dangerous development in warfare, with equally disastrous implications for policing. At the United Nations in October, 70 countries, acknowledged that autonomy in weapons systems raises “serious concerns from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives.”   Delegating life-and-death decisions to machines crosses a moral line, as they would be incapable of appreciating the value of human life and respecting human dignity. Fully autonomous weapons would reduce humans to objects or data points to be processed, sorted and potentially targeted for lethal action.   A U.N. Human Rights Council resolution adopted Oct. 7 stresses the central importance of human decision-making in the use of force. It warns against relying on nonrepresentative data sets, algorithm-based programming and machine-learning processes. Such technologies can reproduce and exacerbate existing patterns of discrimination, marginalization, social inequalities, stereotypes and bias — with unpredictable outcomes.   The only way to safeguard humanity from these weapons is by negotiating new international law. Such an agreement is feasible and achievable. More than 70 countries see an urgent need for “internationally agreed rules and limits” on autonomous weapons systems. This objective has strong support from scientists, faith leaders, military veterans, industry and Nobel Peace laureates.   On Oct. 6, Boston Dynamics and five other robotics companies pledged to not weaponize their advanced mobile robots or the software they develop — and called on the robotics community to follow suit.   There's now much greater understanding among governments of the essential elements of the legal framework needed to address this issue. There is strong recognition that a new international treaty should prohibit autonomous weapons systems that inherently lack meaningful human control or that target people. The treaty should also ensure that other weapons systems can never be used without meaningful human control.   The inability of the current discussion forum to progress to negotiations — due to opposition from some major military powers, such as Russa and the United States — shows its limitations. A new path is urgently needed to negotiate new law. The United States should realize that it is in its interest to participate in drafting new law on killer robots.   Without a dedicated international legal standard on killer robots, the world faces an increasingly uncertain and dangerous future.   http://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/03/digital-dehumanization-paves-way-killer-robots http://www.hrw.org/news/2022/11/28/future-artificial-intelligence http://www.hrw.org/report/2022/11/10/agenda-action/alternative-processes-negotiating-killer-robots-treaty http://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/26/film-immoral-code-explores-danger-machines-kill http://immoralcode.io/ http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/news/discussions-at-un-on-autonomous-weapon-systems-blocked-by-russia-but-states-indicate-way-forward/ http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/news/historic-opportunity-to-regulate-killer-robots-fails-as-a-handful-of-states-block-the-majority/ http://www.icrc.org/en/document/what-you-need-know-about-autonomous-weapons   Nov. 2021   Amnesty International and the Stop Killer Robots campaign have unveiled a social media filter which provides a terrifying glimpse of the future of war, policing and border control. Escape the Scan, a filter for Instagram and Facebook, is part of a major campaign calling for a new international law to ban autonomous weapons systems.   It uses augmented reality (AR) technology to depict aspects of weapons systems that are already in development, such as facial recognition, movement sensors, and the ability to launch attacks on ‘targets’ without meaningful human control.   Several countries are investing heavily in the development of autonomous weapons, despite the devastating human rights implications of giving machines control over the use of force.   In December, a group of UN experts will meet to decide whether to begin negotiating new international law on autonomy in weapons systems. Amnesty International and Stop Killer Robots have launched a petition calling on all governments to voice their support for negotiations.   “We are stumbling into a nightmare scenario, a world where drones and other advanced weapons can choose and attack targets without human control. This filter is designed to give people an idea of what killer robots could soon be capable of, and show why we must act urgently to maintain human control over the use of force,” said Verity Coyle, Amnesty International’s Senior Advisor on Military, Security and Policing.   “Allowing machines to make life-or-death decisions is an assault on human dignity, and will likely result in devastating violations of the laws of war and human rights. It will also intensify the digital dehumanisation of society, reducing people to data points to be processed. We need a robust, legally binding international treaty to stop the proliferation of killer robots – before it’s too late.”   “We have had a decade of talks on autonomous weapons at the United Nations, but these are being blocked by the same states that are developing the weapons,” said Ousman Noor of the Stop Killer Robots campaign.   “The UN Secretary General, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Nobel Prize Winners, thousands of scientists, roboticists and tech workers, are all calling for a legal treaty to prevent these weapons – governments need to draw a line against machines that can choose to kill.”   On 2 December 2021, the Group of Governmental Experts to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) will begin critical talks on whether to proceed with negotiations on a new treaty to address the threat posed by killer robots. So far 66 states have called for a new, legally binding framework on autonomy in weapons systems.   But progress has been stalled by a small number of powerful states, including Russia, Israel and the US, who regard the creation of a new international law as premature.   The replacement of troops with machines will make the decision to go to war easier. What’s more, machines can’t make complex ethical choices within the context of unpredictable battlefield or real world scenarios; there is no substitute for human decision making.   We have already seen how technologies like facial, emotion, gait and vocal recognition fail to recognize women, people of colour and persons with disabilities; and how they cause immense human rights harms even when they “work”. Employing these technologies on the battlefield, in law enforcement or border control would be disastrous.   Despite these concerns, countries including the US, China, Israel, South Korea, Russia, Australia, India, Turkey and the UK are investing heavily in the development of autonomous systems.   For example, the UK is developing an unmanned drone which can fly in autonomous mode and identify a target within a programmed area. China is creating small drone “swarms” which could be programmed to attack anything that emits a body temperature, while Russia has built a robot tank which can be fitted with a machine gun or grenade launcher.   Stop Killer Robots is a global coalition of more than 180 international, regional, and national NGOs and academic partners working across 66 countries to ensure meaningful human control over the use of force through the development of new international law. Amnesty International is one of nine organizations on the coalition’s steering committee.   http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/ http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/11/global-a-critical-opportunity-to-ban-killer-robots-while-we-still-can/ Visit the related web page
	Protect freedom of expression as a vital ‘survival right’ of civilians in armed conflict by Irene Khan, Fernand de Varennes UN Special Rapporteur on promotion and protection of freedom of opinion and expression   Oct. 2023   UN and international community must focus on minorities to address global crises and conflict prevention, UN expert warns   The United Nations and the international community have failed to focus efforts where they are most needed: on preventing conflict and ensuring equal protection of the human rights of marginalised minorities in a world of rising nationalism, xenophobia and prejudice, a UN expert told the UN General Assembly, warning that this has led to growing global instability, humanitarian crises and conflict.   “The world is a darker, more dangerous and unstable place than it has ever been for almost a century,” said Fernand de Varennes, the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues.   “We now have more violent conflicts than at any time since the end of the Second World War,” de Varennes said. “Most of these are internal conflicts, and involve ethnic, religious or linguistic grievances from minorities or indigenous peoples. This has also been the main driving force behind the largest number of displaced people in human history, a staggering 110 million individuals displaced worldwide,” he said.   The Special Rapporteur highlighted the rise of hate speech, hate crimes, and even calls to genocide, and new record levels of antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black and anti-Asian, xenophobia and intolerance, with social media becoming platforms for the spread of dehumanising language usually targeting minorities, often minority women, even normalising violence against them.   He called for the UN to address the ‘inaction and negligence’ in relation to the protection of the rights of minorities when compared to the initiatives provided to other vulnerable groups, to concentrate efforts on conflict prevention rather than on conflict resolution with a focus on internal conflicts which are driving the current explosion of conflicts worldwide, to relaunch and reinvigorate the 2013 guidance note of the Secretary-General on racial discrimination and protection of minorities for the mainstreaming and integration of minority rights in all United Nations pillars and activities, and the integration of minority rights into the work of the United Nations system, and create a permanent forum for minorities as well as begin work on a global treaty on the protection of their rights.   “It is urgent to leave no one behind where it is most needed, and for the United Nations to put into practice the noble principle that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. In the long run, there can be no peace and stability without justice,” de Varennes said.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/un-and-international-community-must-focus-minorities-address-global-crises   * Conflict prevention through the protection of the human rights of minorities.   In the this 2022 report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Fernand de Varennes, provides an overview of activities undertaken since his previous report.   In the thematic section of the report, he discusses conflict prevention through the protection of the human rights of minorities. Violent conflicts have increased around the world in recent years and most of the drivers of these conflicts involve minority grievances of exclusion, discrimination and inequalities linked to violations of the human rights of minorities.   It is necessary to mainstream the human and minority rights framework in order to provide a more effective early warning tool and thereby help to prevent violent conflicts, and the international community must fill the significant gaps in conflict prevention mechanisms, which are failing to focus on the main drivers in most contemporary conflicts.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc4946-conflict-prevention-through-protection-human-rights-minorities http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-minority-issues/annual-reports http://www.ohchr.org/en/events/forums/2022/fifteenth-session-forum-minority-issues   Oct. 2022   Protect freedom of expression as a vital ‘survival right’ of civilians in armed conflict   The information environment has become a dangerous theatre of war in the digital age, Irene Khan, the Special Rapporteur on promotion and protection of freedom of opinion and expression, told the General Assembly last week.   Presenting her report on disinformation and freedom of opinion and expression during armed conflicts, Khan said that State and armed groups, enabled by digital technology and social media, were weaponising information to sow confusion, feed hate, incite violence, discredit human rights defenders, disrupt humanitarian activities and prolong conflict.   “Information has long been manipulated by States and armed groups to deceive and demoralise the enemy. But what is new and deeply worrying in today’s conflicts is the scale, spread and speed of disinformation, propaganda and hate speech, targeting civilians, particularly vulnerable and marginalised groups. It undermines human rights with audacity and impunity,” Khan said.   “During armed conflict, people are at their most vulnerable and in great need of accurate, trustworthy information to ensure their own safety and well-being. Yet that is precisely when they are being hit with manipulated information, internet shutdowns or slowdowns, information blackouts and other restrictions on information,” she said.   “The right to information is not a legitimate target of war,” the Special Rapporteur said.   Khan said the freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to seek, receive and disseminate diverse sources of information, must be upheld by States in times of crises and armed conflict as a precious ‘survival right’ on which people’s lives, health, safety, security and dignity depend.   The expert denounced State-led and State-sponsored disinformation and propaganda and said information was being instrumentalised to inflict harm on civilians. “Factual information and independent media are delegitimised as ‘fake news’, and UN human rights reports are discredited while patently false government propaganda is promoted as facts,” Khan said.   The Special Rapporteur urged States to ensure that all measures to combat disinformation online and offline were fully in line with international human rights standards.   “Using national security and counter terrorism laws to restrict speech, censoring critical voices, attacking independent media and disrupting the Internet do nothing to combat disinformation and much to erode freedom of opinion and expression as well as public trust in the integrity of information which is vital for preventing and resolving conflicts as well as protecting civilians,” she warned.   “The best antidote to disinformation is access to diverse and verifiable sources of information, independent, free, pluralistic and diverse media, trustworthy public information, and media, information and digital literacy," she said.   Given the role of social media in amplifying manipulated information, the Special Rapporteur urged companies to carry out enhanced human rights due diligence in line with United Nations guidelines, adopt effective, human rights-compliant policies, processes and business practices, ensure user security and improve their own transparency and accountability.   Acknowledging measures by some companies to improve crisis response, she called on them to respond with equal commitment to all conflict situations in which they operate.   Khan noted that the new paradigm of information manipulation in the digital age has exposed gaps, weaknesses and ambiguities in international law. She called for international humanitarian law to be strengthened so that the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the information environment can be better protected during armed conflict.   The challenges and digital threats to information and the information environment are complex and must be tackled with collaborative multistakeholder approaches that fully engage civil society and traditional media alongside States, international organisations and digital companies in a range of legal and non-legal measures, Khan said.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/protect-freedom-expression-vital-survival-right-civilians-armed-conflict-un   July 2022   The right to adequate housing during violent conflict - Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal   Massive violations of the right to adequate housing continue in unprecedented fashion during and after violent conflict. The attacking, bombing and shelling of civilian targets and the destruction of entire cities and villages – displacing millions into homelessness – have continued unabated despite the development of modern human rights and humanitarian law.   While international law outlaws all forms of arbitrary destruction of housing, arbitrary displacement, forced evictions and other serious and large-scale violations of the right to adequate housing, there is an alarming continuity of gross violations of the right to adequate housing in times of conflict.   Those severe human rights violations have been largely met with impunity. The report analyses the legal, political and practical challenges to preventing, ending and responding to systematic and deliberate mass destruction of homes during violent conflict.   It calls for recognizing such severe violations of international law as “domicide” – a distinct crime under international criminal law – and concludes with a set of recommendations to prevent and eliminate that pervasive curse on humankind.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a77190-right-adequate-housing-during-violent-conflict-report-special Visit the related web page
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