United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric are calling on states to urgently regulate autonomous weapons systems. These devices, once activated, can select a target and use force without further human intervention. According to the two officials, the world is dangerously approaching a "moral red line" that would be crossed if a machine could decide on its own to target a human being.
The UN and the ICRC had already issued a similar warning in 2023, without securing the adoption of binding international rules. Since then, rapid advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and military technologies have further widened the gap between available capabilities and legal standards. Their joint statement specifically warns of the additional risks to civilians and critical infrastructure.
An international treaty demanded before it's too late
The two organizations are not calling for a ban on all automated military technologies. They are demanding a legally binding instrument with specific prohibitions and strict restrictions. Systems designed to directly target individuals without human control should be prohibited, while other autonomous weapons would remain subject to limitations ensuring respect for international humanitarian law.
Discussions initiated several years ago in Geneva are progressing slowly, even as states invest heavily in these technologies. The review conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, scheduled for November 2026, could pave the way for genuine negotiations. For the UN and the ICRC, waiting for the widespread adoption of these systems would make their control far more difficult and risk delegating life-or-death decisions to algorithms, decisions for which no human being would fully assume responsibility.
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