By Patrick McGrath
As the technology for so-called “killer robots” continues to advance rapidly in the absence of an international treaty, the debate surrounding the ethics and impact of such weapons has sought to keep up. In the past year alone, autonomous weapons have already been used in attacks in Saudi Arabia and Libya. To redirect attention to this timely debate, the IIP hosted an event “Making the Case – Die Gefahren von Killer Robotern und die Notwendigkeit eines präventiven Verbotes” on January 29, in cooperation with Shabka and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots Austria.
The panel was introduced by Director of the IIP Stephanie Fenkart and Secretary General of Shabka Michael Zinkanell, and the discussion was moderated by Miloš Vec, Professor of European Legal and Constitutional History at the University of Vienna and Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences. The panelists included Bernhard Schneider, Head of Migration & Legal Affairs at the Austrian Red Cross; Marit Alex, Chair of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots Austria; Markus Reisner, Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff Service of the State Defense Academy Vienna; and Thomas Hajnoczi, Ambassador, Director of Disarmament, BMEIA.
The panelists focused on debates surrounding the technology, legality, ethics, and international politics of killer robots and sought to answer the following questions: What exactly are killer robots and how far have they developed? What are the legal concerns? What challenges do we face if an international ban treaty continues to fail and what is international civil society doing about it? What role does Austria play in this?
Vec underscored that this debate has moral, legal, and technical dimensions and has implications for humanitarian affairs, war, peace, and terrorism. Kicking off the panel, Reisner spoke about the technical and military aspects of such weapons, underscoring the need to carefully delineate between human control and autonomous operation. Schneider highlighted the humanitarian dimensions of autonomous weapons and the potential for abuse of such weapons by non-democratic countries. Hajnoczi addressed the international legal and diplomatic dimensions of the debate, underscoring the differing perspectives of UN member states as well as past experiences with weapon bans. Providing a perspective from civil society, Alex provided a background on the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots Austria and underscored the need for an outright ban on such autonomous weapons.
Questions after the panel focused on the role of ethics in warfare, technical developments, and the need for further civilian oversight and public consultation.