scholarly journals The Accountability of Software Developers for War Crimes Involving Autonomous Weapons

2021 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliot Winter
Keyword(s):  
War Crimes ◽  
Software Developers ◽  
Autonomous Weapons

scholarly journals Requirement of Mens Rea for War Crimes in the Light of the Development of Autonomous Weapons Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (21) ◽  
pp. 441
Author(s):  
Xavier J. Ramírez García de León
Keyword(s):  
War Crimes ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
Autonomous Weapons ◽  
Weapons Systems

El desarrollo de prácticamente cualquier tecnología conlleva presiones sobre el marco legal que evidencian, por lo general, las dificultades que presenta el derecho para avanzar al mismo ritmo. En algunos casos, estas presiones adquieren una relevancia significativa, si no por su visibilidad, sí por las consecuencias que una deficiente regulación podría generar. Este artículo analiza, desde la perspectiva de la Corte Penal Internacional, el supuesto problema que implicaría la introducción de sistemas de armas autónomas al campo de batalla, particularmente en lo relativo al requisito de mens rea para crímenes de guerra.

scholarly journals The Combatant's Stance: Autonomous Weapons on the Battlefield

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens David Ohlin
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
International Crime ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Mental States ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Military Commander ◽  
Autonomous Weapons

Do Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) qualify as moral or rational agents? This paper argues that combatants on the battlefield are required by the demands of behavior interpretation to approach a sophisticated AWS with the “Combatant’s Stance” — the ascription of mental states required to understand the system’s strategic behavior on the battlefield. However, the fact that an AWS must be engaged with the combatant’s stance does not entail that other persons are relieved of criminal or moral responsibility for war crimes committed by autonomous weapons. This article argues that military commanders can and should be held responsible for perpetrating war crimes through an AWS regardless of the moral status of the AWS as a culpable or non-culpable agent. In other words, a military commander can be liable for the acts of the machine independent of what conclusions we draw from the fact that combatants — even artificial ones — must approach each other with the combatant’s stance.The basic framework for this liability was established at Nuremberg and subsequent tribunals — both of which focused on how a criminal defendant can be responsible for allowing a metaphorical “machine” — such as a concentration camp — to commit an international crime. The novelty in this technological development is that the law must shift from dealing with the metaphor of the “cog in the machine” to a literal machine. Nonetheless, this article also concludes that there is one area where international criminal law is ill suited to dealing with a military commander’s responsibility for unleashing an AWS that commits a war crime. Many of these cases will be based on the commander’s recklessness and unfortunately international criminal law has struggled to develop a coherent theoretical and practical program for prosecuting crimes of recklessness.Published: Jens David Ohlin, "The Combatant's Stance: Autonomous Weapons on the Battlefield," 92 International Law Studies (2016)

Responsibility and War Machines

2015 ◽  
pp. 152-165
Author(s):  
Jai Galliott
Keyword(s):  
War Crimes ◽  
Unmanned Systems ◽  
Institutional Agents ◽  
Autonomous Weapons ◽  
Forward Looking ◽  
Weapons Systems

The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate that while unmanned systems certainly exacerbate some problems and cause us to rethink who we ought to hold morally responsible for military war crimes, traditional notions of responsibility are capable of dealing with the supposed ‘responsibility gap' in unmanned warfare and that more moderate regulation will perhaps prove more important than an outright ban. It begins by exploring the conditions under which responsibility is typically delegated to humans and how these responsibility requirements are challenged in technological warfare. Following this is an examination of Robert Sparrow's notion of a ‘responsibility gap' as it pertains to the deployment of fully autonomous weapons systems. It is argued that we can reach a solution by shifting to a forward-looking and functional sense of responsibility incorporating institutional agents and ensuring that the human role in engineering and unleashing these systems is never overlooked.

JAK LUDOBÓJSTWO ZOSTAŁO UZNANE ZA ZBRODNIĘ – DZIEDZICTWO RAFAŁA LEMKINA

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam MCFARLAND ◽  
Katarzyna HAMER
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Genocide Convention ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
War Crimes Trials ◽  
Criminal Charge ◽  
Short Biography ◽  
The World ◽  
Real Change ◽  
History Of

Raphael Lemkin is hardly known to a Polish audiences. One of the most honored Poles of theXX century, forever revered in the history of human rights, nominated six times for the Nobel PeacePrize, Lemkin sacrificed his entire life to make a real change in the world: the creation of the term“genocide” and making it a crime under international law. How long was his struggle to establishwhat we now take as obvious, what we now take for granted?This paper offers his short biography, showing his long road from realizing that the killing oneperson was considered a murder but that under international law in 1930s the killing a million wasnot. Through coining the term “genocide” in 1944, he helped make genocide a criminal charge atthe Nuremburg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders in late 1945, although there the crime of genocidedid not cover killing whole tribes when committed on inhabitants of the same country nor when notduring war. He next lobbied the new United Nations to adopt a resolution that genocide is a crimeunder international law, which it adopted on 11 December, 1946. Although not a U.N. delegate – hewas “Totally Unofficial,” the title of his autobiography – Lemkin then led the U.N. in creating theConvention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted 9 December, 1948.Until his death in 1958, Lemkin lobbied tirelessly to get other U.N. states to ratify the Convention.His legacy is that, as of 2015, 147 U.N. states have done so, 46 still on hold. His tomb inscriptionreads simply, “Dr. Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), Father of the Genocide Convention”. Without himthe world as we know it, would not be possible.

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