Position Paper

POSITION PAPER
Committee: UNGA DISEC

Portfolio: Central African Republic
Agenda: Deliberating upon the ethics of modern warfare with special emphasis on the Third
Revolution of Warfare
BACKGROUND
Modern Warfare includes AI-Enabled Warfare, Cyber Warfare and Hybrid Warfare.
The newly developed autonomous weapons are described as the third revolution of warfare.
These weapons are termed as Lethal Automated Weapons (LAWs). LAWs include
machines capable of processing a wide variety of information, with an extended autonomy
from a few minutes to several hours, full mobility, and able to make a wide range of
decisions (e.g. whether to fire or not). LAWs can be categorized into 2 systems: Drones;
Ground Robots.
Drones
Most aerial and marine drones are equipped with automatic mode. They are used for laser
guidance, they were armed in the early 2000s in Afghanistan and Iraq. A provocative
example is illustrated in the dystopian short film “Slaughterbots”, which tells the story of
bird-sized drones that can actively seek out a particular person and shoot a small amount of
dynamite point-blank through that person’s skull. These drones fly themselves and are too
small and nimble to be easily caught, stopped, or destroyed. These drones are not merely
fictional. One such drone nearly killed the president of Venezuela in 2018, and could be
built today by an experienced hobbyist for less than $1,000. All of the parts are available for
purchase online, and all open-source technologies are available for download.
Not only will these killer robots become more intelligent, more precise, faster, and cheaper;
they will also learn new capabilities, such as how to form swarms with teamwork and
redundancy, making their missions virtually unstoppable. A swarm of 10,000 drones that
could wipe out half a city could theoretically cost as little as $10 million.
Ground Robots
Used mainly for defensive missions (surveillance, site protection) or transport, land robots are
less widely used. Mobility over rough terrain poses technical problems requiring, in the case
of ‘legged’ robots such as those of Boston Dynamics, technical prowess, this also affects the
robotic ‘mule’ used by the American army. Less spectacular but more and more widely used,
heavy unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) mounted on tracks are used for transport tasks but
can also be used to support drone systems. Similar to models used in the civilian sector and
less expensive than drones, they are developed by different manufacturers, such as Estonian
Milrem Robotics, whose THeMIS was deployed in 2019 in the Barkhane mission in Mali.
The Russian army is one of the few to have armed these vehicles, with the Uran-9 reportedly
being tested in Syria.
COUNTRY STANCE
Central African Republic is concerned by the increase in the use of LAWs. The country has
one of the lowest per capita income, unable to fulfil our basic needs how can we be a part of
the modern warfare race? Therefore, Central African Republic does not support the
development or use of LAWs.
A major issue with LAWs is having a clear line of accountability—knowing who is
responsible in case of an error. This is well established for soldiers on the battlefield. But
when the killing is assigned to an autonomous-weapon system, the accountability is unclear
(similar to accountability ambiguity when an autonomous vehicle runs over a pedestrian).
Such ambiguity may ultimately absolve aggressors for injustices or violations of international
humanitarian law.
A further related danger is that autonomous weapons can target individuals, using facial or
gait recognition, and the tracing of phone or IoT signals. This enables not only the
assassination of one person but a genocide of any group of people
SOLUTIONS
1. Putting a human in the loop: Making sure that every lethal decision should be in the
hands of a human
2. Agreement of countries: There can be an agreement of the world where all countries
agree to fight and resolve all conflicts using only robots or software, this will decrease
the casualties in the war.
3. Restriction of the use of such LAWs which have high unpredictability: The robots
whose next step cannot be predicted/judged should not be used in warfare.
4. Regulating the design and use of non-prohibited LAWs: Limits should be put on:
 Limits on the type of target: Robots should not attack thing that are not
military objectives
 Limits on the situation of use: Robots should not be used in a place where
civilian/civilian objects are present.

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POSITION PAPER

Committee: UNGA DISEC

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