ICRAC member Dr. Matthew Bolton, presenting a statement on disarmament at the UN General Assembly’s First Committee on Tuesday. Photo by Shant Alexander for Control Arms.

On behalf of global civil society organizations, International Committee for Robot Arms Control member Matthew Bolton calls for disarmament and arms control “driven by the needs and rights of people most affected by armed violence.” The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots also spoke, calling for fully autonomous weapons to “be prohibited through an international treaty, as well as through national laws and other measures.” To watch video footage of the NGO speeches, click here.

Dr. Matthew Bolton, a member of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC),  addressed the United Nations General Assembly First Committee Tuesday afternoon, on behalf of Article 36 and other international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working on disarmament, peacebuilding and humanitarian issues.

“We call for an approach to disarmament that is driven by the needs and rights of people most affected by armed violence, not by the discretion of states and organizations most responsible for it,” said Dr. Bolton to representatives of the 193 UN member states, as well as UN agencies and NGOs. The First Committee has responsibility for disarmament and international security.

The NGO statement, read by Dr. Bolton and endorsed by 11 organizations, congratulated states on “some noteworthy progress” in recent international discussions on the elimination of nuclear weapons, the recent Security Council resolution on small arms and light weapons as well as the Arms Trade Treaty, signed by over 100 states since June.

Despite these developments in global policy making on controlling weapons, however, Dr. Bolton asserted that “now is not the time for resting on laurels.” The NGO statement identified numerous concerns, including the abuse of the consensus rule in disarmament forums, exclusion of meaningful civil society participation, lack of equal opportunities for women in decisionmaking and the marginalization of the voices of victims and survivors of armed violence.

“Creativity and new human-centered approaches must be a requirement for all states advocating nuclear disarmament, conventional arms control and reduced military expenditure,” said Dr. Bolton, reading the NGO statement. “We can and must replace stalemate and watered-down outcomes with alternatives that advance human security and social and economic justice.”

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots also delivered a statement in the same session, calling for a prohibition on fully autonomous weapons.

“Our campaign believes that human control is essential to ensure the protection of civilians and to ensure compliance with international law,” said Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch, delivering the statement on behalf of the campaign. “We seek a comprehensive and preemptive ban on weapons systems that would be able to select and attack targets without meaningful human intervention. These fully autonomous weapons or ‘lethal autonomous robots’ must be prohibited through an international treaty, as well as through national laws and other measures.”

Dr. Bolton is an expert on global disarmament policy and assistant professor of political science at Pace University. He is author of Foreign Aid and Landmine Clearance: Governance, Politics and Security in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Sudan (I.B. Tauris, 2010) and a forthcoming travelogue Political Minefields (I.B. Tauris, 2014). He has written widely on the politics of landmines, cluster munitions, the Arms Trade Treaty and fully autonomous military robotics (“killer robots”). He recently co-authored an ICRAC Working Paper on regulating robotic weapons with the Arms Trade Treaty.

ICRAC is an international committee of experts in robotics technology, robot ethics, international relations, international security, arms control, international humanitarian law, human rights law, and public campaigns, concerned about the pressing dangers that military robots pose to peace and international security and to civilians in war.