Chapter

The automation of authority : discrepancies with jus ad bellum principles

Donovan Phillips

Lethal autonomous weapons : re-examining the law and ethics of robotic warfare

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2021

p. 159-171

English

This chapter considers how the adoption of autonomous weapons systems (AWS) may affect jus ad bellum principles of warfare. In particular, it focuses on the use of AWS in non-international armed conflicts (NIAC). Given the proliferation of NIAC, the development and use of AWS will most likely be attuned to this specific theater of war. As warfare waged by modernized liberal democracies (those most likely to develop and employ AWS at present) increasingly moves toward a model of individualized warfare, how, if at all, will the principles by which we measure the justness of the commencement of such hostilities be affected by the introduction of AWS, and how will such hostilities stack up to current legal agreements surrounding their more traditional engagement? This chapter claims that such considerations give us reason to question the moral and legal necessity of ad bellum proper authority.

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• Lethal autonomous weapons : re-examining the law and ethics of robotic warfare / edited by Jai Galliott, Duncan MacIntosh & Jens David Ohlin