Killer robots must be banned before their “insidious creep into policing” puts lives at risk and “poses a serious threat to human rights”,
Amnesty International has said as it launched a new briefing in
Geneva.
Amnesty said that governments must ban any further development of killer robots as there is a “
likelihood that they will be used in police operations” in
an address to the UN’s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).
The organisation is calling for a
pre-emptive ban on the development, stockpiling, transfer, deployment and use of fully autonomous weapons systems (AWS or killer robots), including drones.
The call comes months after a report highlighted how
police in Wiltshire, Merseyside, Staffordshire, Essex, and the West Midlands have already acquired or used drones for surveillance and other operations.
That
report, published last year by the University of Birmingham Policy Commission, in
research led by Sir David Omand, a former director at the Government’s listening post at GCHQ, warned that authorities must look at governing how and when drones can be used.
Last year, the Royal Navy also launched its
first-ever squadron comprised entirely of unmanned aircraft in Cornwall.
The new squadron, based at RNAS Culdrose in Helston, is also responsible for
trialling the next generation of pilotless aircraft.
The pilotless drones of 700X Naval Air Squadron act as 'eyes in the sky' on
reconnaissance missions and and counter-piracy patrols.
The fleet includes three high tech Boeing Insitu ScanEagle devices, which are launched from aircraft carriers with a giant catapult.
Each plane can spend up to 18 hours in the air
beaming back live footage of targets to a three-man Royal Navy operating team.
The drones have previously been used to locate mines in the Gulf but will now be assigned to Lieutenant Commander Alan Rogers, whose new squadron is one of the Navy's smallest in terms of human personnel.
Amnesty today said that
precursors to fully autonomous weapons – including drones and other unmanned weapons systems which are currently operated by humans –are
already used to commit violations and present serious challenges to ensuring accountability.
But, the organisation said, rapid advances in technology could mean the
next generation of robotic weapons would be able to select and attack targets, potentially killing or injuring people, without effective human control – a chilling prospect which carries a new set of concerns.
“The second round of talks in Geneva this week are a clear sign that governments are waking up to the wide range of serious concerns posed by killer robots, whose development and deployment in the near future seem all but inevitable if we don’t act now,” said
Rasha Abdul Rahim, Campaigner on Arms Control, Security Trade & Human Rights at Amnesty International, who is currently at the CCW talks in Geneva.
“The legal, ethical, and moral quandaries of using these systems in warfare are rightly beginning to receive the attention they deserve. But what’s
still being widely overlooked is the likelihood that they will also be used in police operations, and it is urgent that this is addressed now.
“
Relying solely on machines to maintain law and order is not just a hypothetical scenario explored in countless sci-fi films. It is
a chilling idea which may actually be realized if current developments are left unchecked. Now is the
time for states to ban killer robots both on the battlefield and in policing, before we reach the point of no return.”
Amnesty International’s new briefing, Autonomous Weapons Systems: Five key human rights issues for consideration, focuses on the implications of police use of killer robots in law enforcement.
It argues that police use of robotic weapons would be
fundamentally incompatible with international human rights law, resulting in
unlawful killings,
excessive use of force causing injuries, and
undermining the right to human dignity.
Unlike highly trained law enforcement officers, robots could not by themselves peacefully diffuse confrontations, distinguish between lawful and unlawful orders, make decisions about graduated response with a view to minimising harm, or be held accountable for mistakes or malfunctions that result in death or serious injuries, Amnesty said.
Fully autonomous weapons without some level of human oversight have not yet been deployed, but rapid advances in technology are bringing them closer to reality, the organisation suggested.
Amnesty’s address suggested
there is just a “small leap” from products that are already on the market to fully fledged killer robots. It said
companies in the UK, USA, Jordan, Israel, Spain and elsewhere are already developing “less lethal” robotic weapons for policing that are remotely operated or which fire automatically when touched.
These include
unmanned aerial vehicles, or
drones, and
ground vehicles that can apparently shoot electric-shock
darts,
tear gas and
other less-lethal projectiles, r
esulting in the risk of death or serious injuries.
One example is the ShadowHawk drone being developed by
US-based Vanguard Defense Industries. The
ShadowHawk is designed
to carry out operations similar to those of a surveillance helicopter, but it can also be weaponised.
A media report hailed these capabilities when a
Texas Sheriff’s office purchased one in
2011: “Although its initial role will be limited to surveillance, the ShadowHawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle,
previously used against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and East Africa, has the ability to tase suspects from above as well as carrying 12-gauge shotguns and grenade launchers”.
Amnesty International believes that in policing operations, autonomous weapons systems would not be able to properly assess complex policing situations and comply with relevant standards.
“Under international standards, police may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty. They prohibit the use of firearms except in defence against an imminent threat of death or serious injury. It’s very difficult to imagine a machine substituting for human judgment, which is critically important to decisions on the use of potentially lethal force,” said Rasha Abdul Rahim.
Amnesty International and its partners on the
Campaign to Stop Killer Robots are
calling for a global pre-emptive ban on the development, transfer, deployment and use of autonomous weapons systems, for either armed conflict or law enforcement.
In the
absence of such a prohibition, Amnesty said that
states must publicly support and implement a
call by the UN Special Rapporteur
on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to impose a moratorium on the development, transfer, deployment and use of such systems.
The organisation said that, in the meantime, “it is imperative that due consideration be given to the human rights implications of autonomous weapons systems”.
http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Killer-robots-banned-warns-Amnesty-International/story-26342813-detail/story.html
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