UN and Red Cross Issue Renewed Appeal for Restrictions and Bans on Autonomous Weapons
The leaders of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are calling for legally binding rules on autonomous weapons systems, cautioning that the risks attached to such weapons have increased.
The organizations issued their appeal in the face of “growing concerns that increasingly sophisticated weapons are being made and deployed at ever greater speed and scale,” according to a UN statement.
“We are now dangerously close to crossing a moral red line: the autonomous targeting of humans by machines,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a joint appeal with ICRC head Mirjana Spoljaric Egger.
Autonomous weapons systems can pick a target and apply force against that target without human intervention. While there has not yet been a confirmed use of a fully autonomous weapon, the UN said that there have been unconfirmed reports of fully autonomous and artificial intelligence-guided drones used in military conflicts.
Other concerns from the UN and ICRC included the ability to differentiate between combatants and civilians in a conflict zone, with little faith expressed in a machine’s ability to tell the difference.
In July 2026, Red Cross team of emergency responders in Ukraine was nearly killed by a first-person view drone. The team had evacuated their van to administer aid to people in the Zaporizhzhia region, and soon after, the drone destroyed the vehicle, Megan Gates reported for Security Technology earlier this month.
The greatest concerns are around weapons that deliberately target humans because the weapons would “reduce human life to data, algorithm, sensor, and machine operation.”
The appeal, which was published on 25 August, calls on governments to begin negotiations for a legally binding framework with explicit prohibitions and restrictions. Negotiators are planning to meet in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 2026 to review the Convention on Conventional Weapons. The UN and ICRC said the conference is the “clearest path available” to help establish binding legal rules.
The appeal also calls for the banning of unpredictable autonomous weapons—ones where the operator cannot predict or anticipate the outcome of the weapon’s force or impact—as well as antipersonnel weapons. While all states acknowledged that autonomous weapons raise ethical concerns, the greatest concerns are around weapons that deliberately target humans because the weapons would “reduce human life to data, algorithm, sensor, and machine operations,” said Laurent Gisel, head of arms and conduct of hostilities for ICRC.
“The new push comes against the backdrop of drones and other technologies used in conflicts as diverse as the Russia-Ukraine war, the Middle East, Sudan, and others,” the Associated Press reported. Ground robotic vehicles have largely been relied on to deliver supplies to infantry units and carry out evacuations, although Kyiv is now looking to increase its use of robotic systems in an effort to reduce pressure on its outnumbered infantry.
Machines with the power and discretion to take lives without human involvement threaten to transform warfare in ways with grave humanitarian consequences.
— ICRC (@ICRC) August 24, 2026
States need to act now to set clear international regulations on autonomous weapons systems.
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