Focus on National Regulations on LAWS and Military AI

Abstract

From a ban to a soft-law mechanism, any potential international regulation of LAWS could not be implemented without the support of national regulatory frameworks. Also, the creation of a multilateral regulation could benefit from understanding national challenges and solutions. To facilitate the discussion of implementable governance options for the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) debate on LAWS, this report provides an analysis of national regulations on LAWS and its enabling technologies. Rather than providing an exhaustive account of all relevant policies of States Parties to the CCW, the report focuses on the regulatory approaches of five States Parties (China, Japan, Russia, the United States, and Germany in conjunction with the European Union), highlighting common challenges as well as possible solutions. National regulations, reviewed by this report, include general strategies on (military) AI, rules on development and procurement, e.g. weapon reviews, rules on the deployment of LAWS and military AI, and export control. Moreover, the report also considers whether and how states shape and formulate regulations on human control and similar concepts in the use force.