Final Arguments

1. ESTABLISHING SPEECH
- PIL is constantly evolving; while there are persuasive authors against it, there are
also authors for it. As of now there is no definite stand as to the legality of the
development and deployment of autonomous weapons.
- Main contention was whether the development and deployment of the WALL was
legal. Adawa would say the development is illegal because it is unethical and the
deployment is illegal because there was no reason for it to be deployed. The
response was not proportionate. However the deployment of the WALL was not
done to pose threat to Adawa but was done to fight the well-organized and
well-armed militias.
- The question now is whether, Rasasa can legally deploy the WALL, a military
weapon, to combat the militias, who under PIL are conventionally considered as
civilians.
-
- The main arguments for this petition is divided between the
a. Development of the WALL
b. Actual Deployment and Usage of the WALL having an inherent right of
self-defense.

DEVELOPMENT OF WALL

FIRST ARGUMENT: No law prohibiting or regulating the development and

deployment of Lethal Autonomous Weapon

1. Nullum crimen sine lege which means there is no crime if there is no law prohibiting it
is a generally accepted principle in law in relation to establishing liabilities of any entity.

Signatories to 4
- 4 Geneva Conventions of 1949
--ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
-ICESC International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights
- Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
-Vienna Convention on Law on Treaties
Adawa contended that the W.A.L.L. violates the UN ​Convention on Conventional Weapons,
as its autonomous nature is consistent and similar with the definition of “other devices”
introduced by said convention. Such convention does not apply to Rasasa because it is not a
signatory nor it is a customary law.

Under the doctrine of ​pacta tertiis nec nocent nec prosunt​ i​ t means that the treaty binds the
parties and only the parties and it does not create obligation to third parties.

This rule has been codified in​ Article 18 of Vienna Convention on Law of Treatie​s which
states that:

A State is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty
when:

(a) it has ​signed the treaty​ or has exchanged instruments constituting the treaty subject to
ratification, acceptance or approval, until it shall have made its intention clear not to become a
party to the treaty; or

(b) ​it has expressed its consent to be bound by the treaty​, pending the entry into force of the
treaty and provided that such entry into force is not unduly delayed.

Which clearly absent on the part of Rasasa. The state did not sign nor consent thereto to such
convention.

Article 1 SCOPE OF APPLICATION of CCW

Nothing in this Protocol shall be invoked for the purpose of affecting the sovereignty of a State
to maintain or re-establish law and order in the State or to defend the national unity and
territorial integrity of the State.

Furthermore, autonomous weapons are not included in the list of conventional weapons. The
inapplicability of the convention and the absence of regulation of autonomous weapons mean
that there is no violation nor liability on the part of Rasasa.

However, absence of specific law/treaty does not mean free reign use and development of such
kind of weapon. We concede that if in any case use of force is to be applied, IHL will
automatically apply.

IHL is a set of rules which seek, for humanitarian reasons, to limit the effects of armed conflict. It
protects persons who are not or are no longer participating in the hostilities and restricts the
means and methods of warfare. International humanitarian law is also known as the law of war
or the law of armed conflict.

WALL has precisely conform with the principles of IHL such as distinction, proportionality, and
precaution. This further solidifies the argument that the WALL does not violate any international
law.

a)The Principle of Distinction

It must distinguish between the civilian population and combatants. Therefore, an autonomous
weapon must be capable of recognizing and analysing a person’s behaviour and determining if
he or she takes part in the hostilities. However, whether a person is directly participating in
hostilities or not is not always that clear. An autonomous weapon will have to undergo extensive
testing and will have to prove that it can reliably distinguish combatants from civilians. (ICRC)

-The algorithm of the WALL is fueled by the training data provided not just by the Rasasan
police but also the police and military forces of ten other States. It has advanced form of
recognizing armed threats, as well as indicators of retreat, surrender, incapacity, and other
factors that would render hors de combat in order to precisely differentiate combatants from
non-combatants and wounded soldiers. It is backed up by the series of field tests it has gone
through conducted by more than 30 experts from different States to extensively review and test
its accurateness without bias, and the results yield almost 100% accuracy. [Compromis, par. 20
and par. 25]

b)The Principle of Proportionality

It seeks to limit damage caused by military operations by requiring that the effects of the means
and methods used must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought. (ICRC)
The WALL is equipped with 360-degree motion-sensing, high definition, and infrared cameras.
And to respond to threats, each unit is equipped with an array of non-lethal and lethal options,
ranging from speakers broadcasting audible warnings, all the way to fully automatic .50 caliber
machine guns mounted on 360-degree turntables. It will deploy, on the basis of graduated
sequencing, demonstrative measures to present levels of force, based on its training data,
against anyone attempting to cross border illegally, in either direction. [Compromis, par. 24]

c.) The Principle of Military Necessity

-permits measures which are actually necessary to accomplish a legitimate military purpose of a
conflict, i.e. the complete or partial submission of the enemy at the earliest possible moment
with the minimum expenditure of life and resources.
- (P. 25) Teams of Adawan and Rasasan scientists then presented their conclusions
based upon the simulated and field tests. They explained that the system had been extensively
peer-reviewed and tested by government and private experts in more than 30 countries. The
head of the Adawan team said that: Naturally, the testing team paid particular attention to the
question of whether the WALL might deploy deadly force when the situation does not warrant
such a response or when it is not necessary. Although it carries lethal potential as a last resort,
with embedded rules instructing the software to favor non-lethal deterrence.

MARTENS CLAUSE DEFENSE (Customary Law)

The Martens Clause, named after its creator F.F. Martens, was drafted at the 1899 Hague
Peace Conference which led to the 1899 Hague Convention. It was created as a compromise
measure between disagreeing states as to whether inhabitants of occupied territories could be
regarded as lawful combatants if they took up arms against the occupying force (Greenwood
pg.129, in Fleck 1995).

The Martens clause, also appears in the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I.

“In cases not covered by this Protocol or by other international agreements, civilians and
combatants remain under the protection and authority of the principles of international law
derived from established custom, from the principles of humanity and from the dictates of public
conscience.”

1. The Principle of Humanity

-forbids the infliction of all suffering, injury or destruction not necessary for achieving the
legitimate purpose of a conflict.

- an AW programmed only to recognise and attack adverse military targets would abide by
these rules. Regarding sparing civilians as much as possible and limitations on means and
methods, these duties would normally fall to humans programming the mission parameters into
an autonomous system and so is not a ground for AWS breaching the Clause. Those who
surrender could be protected if a system is programmed to recognise ‘hands up’ gestures or
white flags.

-The algorithm of the WALL is fueled by the training data provided not just by the Rasasan
police but also the police and military forces of ten other States. It has advanced form of
recognizing armed threats, as well as indicators of retreat, surrender, incapacity, (P20)

-Many objections against autonomous weapons are situated outside IHL. Some are about
morality. While I would never claim that robots can be more humane than humans I am
convinced that only human beings can be inhuman.

2. Principle of Public Conscience

- The reference to “public conscience” instills the law with morality and requires that
assessments of the means and methods of war account for the opinions of citizens and experts
as well as governments.

-Thus, we cannot say that AWS go against the ‘dictates of public conscience’ because we
simply cannot know what level of opposition is required, and how it should be measured.

-A related objection is that robots lack “human emotions and the capacity for compassion. IHL
does not seek to promote “love,” “mercy”. but respect based upon objective criteria.
In conclusion, despite being morally problematic, AWS do not breach the Martens Clause.

Firstly, because there are no customary rules prohibiting the use of AWS.
Second, because the WALL acquired large amount of data to identify hors de combat thus did
not violate principle of humanity. Finally, the ‘dictates of public conscience’ have no defined
limit as to what level of public opposition is required to make a means or method of warfare
unlawful, thus we cannot say that AWS go against these dictates. Therefore, there is nothing
inherent about the existence or use of autonomous weapon systems which makes them
unlawful under the Martens Clause.

DEPLOYMENT OF WALL

(SELF DEFENSE ARGUMENT)

1.International law grant states an inherent right to self-defense. States can exercise this right
whenever they face armed attack.

2. Self-defense is one of the exceptions to the prohibition against use of force under article 2(4)
of the UN Charter and customary international law. During negotiations on adopting the United
Nations (UN) Charter at the San Francisco Conference in 1945, the right to self-defense was
placed in Article 51 and became a part of international conventional law.

----​-Article 2 (4) of UN Charter-

“ All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against
the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent
with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

----​Article 51 of UN Charter exception of Article 2

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective
self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations”
However, neither the UN Charter, nor any international document, has defined what is meant by
armed attack.

The terminology of Art. 51 is not absolutely clear. It may also be argued that the authors of the
Charter were wise enough not to exclude situations in which an armed attack could also
originate from a non-State actor and thus voluntarily did not refer to states with regard to the
author of the attack, but only with regard to the victim of the attack.

Thus, the focus of Art. 51 refers to the definition of the term “armed attack”. If states suffer from
an armed attack in the sense of Art. 51 they have the right to react by using force irrespective of
who is the author of the attack.

1st DEFENSE (Armed Attack)

First, the term “armed attack” appears in the jus ad bellum, which governs when a State may
resort to force as an instrument of its national policy. In that context, it serves as a condition
precedent to the resort to force in self-defence pursuant to Article 51 of the UN Charter and
customary international law.

In international humanitarian law, According to Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International

Law, armed attack is generally the ‘physical occurrence of the attack’ through one state crossing
the borders of another and acts of violence against the adversary, whether in offence or in
defence.”

It is important to bear in mind that this notion only attains relevance once an “armed conflict” is
underway. Like “attack”, “armed conflict” is a legal term of art referring to two types of conflicts:

1) ​international armed conflicts​, which are between States; and

2) ​non-international armed conflicts​, which are conflicts at a certain level of intensity and
organization between a State and an organized armed group or between organized armed
groups.

Absent a situation qualifying as one of these conflicts, domestic and human rights law, not
humanitarian law, governs the activities in question.

In order to distinguish an armed conflict in the meaning of common Article 3, from less serious
forms of violence, such as internal disturbances and tensions, riots or acts of banditry, to an
armed attack, the situation must reach a certain threshold of confrontation which excludes
internal disturbances and tensions from the definition of NIAC, also applies to common Article 3.

Not merely internal tension or distrubances because it was recognized by UNODC on UN Office
on Drugs and Crim as a new and major player in international trafficking of illegal drugs. (P. 35)

The States parties to the 1949 Geneva Conventions have entrusted the ​ICRC, ​through the
Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement,

"to work for the understanding and dissemination of knowledge of international humanitarian
law applicable in armed conflicts and to prepare any development thereof" .

It is on this basis that the ICRC takes this opportunity to present the prevailing legal opinion on
the definition of "international armed conflict" and "non-international armed conflict" under
International Humanitarian Law, the branch of international law which governs armed conflict.

ICRC​ ( The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral, and
independent organization whose independently humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and
dignity of victims of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance. The ICRC is
funded by voluntary contributions from the States party to the Geneva Conventions. 17
February 1863, Geneva, Switzerland)

IHL distinguishes two types of armed conflicts, namely:

· international armed conflicts, opposing two or more States, and

· non-international armed conflicts, between governmental forces and non governmental armed
groups.

In the case at bar, it is NIAC.

a) Non-International Armed Conflicts ​within the Meaning of Common Article 3 Common

Article 3 applies to "armed conflicts not of an international character occurring in the
territory of one of the High Contracting Parties".

These include armed conflicts in which one or more non-governmental armed groups are
involved. Depending on the situation, hostilities may occur between governmental armed forces
and non-governmental armed groups.

Two criteria are usually used in this regard:

1.​First, the hostilities must reach a minimum level of intens​ity. This may be the case, when
the government is obliged to use military force against the attackers, instead of mere police
forces.

(P.34) In its annual report delivered to the Rasasan Parliament in February 2017, the Rasasan
Border Police report concluded, “These new militants are well armed and well-organized, and
the police are simply unable to remove them.”

2. ​Second​, non-governmental groups involved in the conflict must be considered as "parties to

the conflict", meaning that they p​ossess organized armed forces
.
-(P.34) What were once disorganized gangs have become organized militias, and their crimes
are no longer limited to opportunistic thievery.

NIAC applies only to armed conflicts between State armed forces and dissident armed forces or
other organised armed groups.
An “organized armed group” is the armed wing of a non-state party to a non-international
armed conflict, and may be comprised of either:

1.dissident armed forces (for example, breakaway parts of state armed forces); or
2.other organized armed groups which recruit their members primarily from the civilian
population but have developed a sufficient degree of military organization to conduct hostilities
on behalf of a party to the conflict.

2nd DEFENSE (Armed attack)

Tom Ruys.​ Invited expert in International Criminal Court Forum.

Author of 'Armed Attack' and Article 51 of the UN Charter and has been cited in different
articles.

● Prof. dr. Tom Ruys is a professor of international law at Ghent University (tenure-track).
● Tom was previously awarded the Francis Lieber Prize (2015 article prize and 2011 book
prize) as well as the Francis Deák Prize of the American Society of International Law.
● His writings have appeared inter alia in the American Journal of International Law, the
International and Comparative Law Quarterly, the Leiden Journal of International Law,
the Chinese Journal of International Law and the Journal of Conflict and Security Law.
● Tom is a member of the International Law Association’s Committee on the Use of Force
and the ILA Study Group on Sanctions. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Journal on the Use
of Force and International Law  (JUFIL, Routledge), vice-director of the Military Law and
 Law of War Review  and a member of the editorial board of the Revue belge de droit
international.

PinPrick DOCTRINE​- It deals with situations where consecutive attacks take place that are
linked in time, source and cause, in particular when those attacks are part of a ‘continuous,
overall plan of attack purposely relying on numerous small raids’.

In this context, it is argued that incidents that would in themselves merely constitute ‘less grave
uses of force’, when forming part of a chain of events, can qualitatively transform into an ‘armed
attack’ triggering the right of self-defence.

According to this theory, in cases of repeated cross-border incursions, States may use force not
with regard to each individual incursion but with regard to all of them as collectively amounting
to an armed attack.

The decisions of the ICJ in Oil Platforms are interpreted as implying a doctrine of “accumulation
of events” or Pin-Prick doctrine. A concrete explanation given by Ruys to the notion is as
follows: the Court has accepted that some acts which fall below the intensity threshold by nature
can “collectively” constitute an armed attack, which would in its turn give rise to exercising
self-defence

The Court in its ruling in Nicaragua case accepted the possibility of having a given accumulation
of events which would constitute an armed attack, however, it also pointed out that very little
information available with regards to the fact of the case rendered it difficult to decide wheter
there had been an accumulation of events which amounted to armed attack.

** The Pin prick doctrine of armed attack has been relied upon during deliberations in the
Secuirty Council by the US with regards to Vietnam, by Portugal with regards to the conflict
involving its former colonies in Africa, and by South Africa with regards to its involvement in
Angola. This can be found in UN Security Council Resolutions 546, 548, and 574 **

In the Iranian Oil Platforms case, the court was confronted with a claim by the U.S.A. that its use
of force against Iranian naval vessels and oil rigs was justified as a response to a continuing
pattern of attacks by Iran against U.S. flagged vessels. The court concluded, however, that
given the context of the alleged attacks (war between Iran and Iraq) it could not be conclusively
established that the attacks, even if carried out by Iran, were targeted against the U.S.A.117
Thus, the court framed the question in terms of the pin-prick doctrine but avoided answering it
by reference to evidentiary concerns. Court rejected American claims of self-defence owing to
lack of evidence.
While the doctrine does not go uncontested, accumulation of events enjoys considerable
support in leagl doctrine especially in relation to attacks by irregulars and armed bands. The
armed bands or in this case the militia will virtually rely on hit and run tactics hence allowing
militias to leave the victim state Rasasa without effective protection.

This is particularly relevant in relation to attacks by irregulars, armed bands, and well organized
militias.

The defensive use of force in this sort of situation may be justified by reference to the ‘pin-prick’
or ‘accumulation of events’ doctrine. It permits defensive uses of force in response to a
continuing pattern of attack providing objective proof of a future threat. It is commonly accepted
that not all uses of force constitute an armed attack. There is a certain gravity threshold below
which uses of force are not armed attacks for the purpose of Art. 51.

1.First, there must be an armed attack.Under the pin-prick doctrine, this requirement can be
satisfied by a series of attacks which can together constitute a continuing attack.
This begs the question of how many individual attacks constitute a continuing attack? No
definite ex ante answer can be provided on this point. It could be 10 or 2. .
This will have to be determined on the basis of the facts of each situation. Some factors which
might be useful to consider are: number of attacks, time between attacks, intensity of individual
attacks.
-constant increase in the frequency of such raids every month. [P. 28]

2. Only when the unlawful use of force reaches a minimal gravity will it qualify as an armed
attack. An adequate construction of this minimum threshold by Dinstein who finds that an armed
attack requires​ USE OF FORCE PRODUCING SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES EPITOMIZED
BY​: (2012-20180

1. Territorial intrusions
-“The small Adawan gangs that arose in the wake of Hurricane Makan have apparently
organized themselves into larger armed groups, and have turned the resources, personnel, and
weapons they previously used for localized crimes towards cross- border crime into Rasasa.”
Adawan criminal gangs regularly entered Rasasa under cover of night [P. 27-28]
The previously unorganized Adawan bandits have used their profits to create a
structured and well-armed militia, which uses its permanent camps within Rasasan territory as a
headquarters for its global enterprise.” [P.35]

2. Human Casualties/Destruction of Property

1. (P17) Simple hooligans did acts of violence, arsons, vandalism of public and private property,
as well as thefts of cash, equipment, and trade goods.
2. [P.28] Violent and property crime rates continued to dwindle in both Adawa and
Rasasa.Attacked small villages, assaulting and even killing villagers, returning to Adawa with
Helian bulbs, growing and processing equipment, and virtually anything else of value.

3. [P.35] In March 2017, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that,
“There is a new and major player in international trafficking of illegal drugs. The previously
unorganized Adawan bandits have used their profits to create a structured and well-armed
militia.
4.[P.36] On 1 June 2017, the militia simultaneously attacked nine Rasasan Border Police
stations, killing 21 officers.

Smal;-scale attacks are not excluded from the purview of Article 51 UN charter. As affirmed by
Nuclear Weapons advisory opinion, the type of weapon used in the attack is immaterial.

ESTOPPEL DEFENSE
Estoppel as general principle of international law recognized by civilised nations.
-International estoppel requires satisfaction of three elements:
1. First, the statement creating the estoppel must be clear and unambiguous;
2. second, the statement must be voluntary, unconditional, and authorised; and
3. finally, there must be good faith reliance upon the representation of one party by the
other party either to the detriment of the relying party or to the advantage of the party making
the representation.
“Adawa has violated the principle of consistency and is precluded from asserting the WALL as a
threat to its people and soil, for it is contrary and inconsistent with the attitude Adawa previously
adapted during the research and development stages of the WALL.”

DEFENSES
If attacked through ETHICS
unwarranted loss if innocent lives and property
The Adawan team, themselves, after conducting a series of field testing, state that “Although it
carries lethal potential as a last resort, the WALL is unimaginably more reliable than human
police or soldiers. During months of testing, it demonstrated a ‘false positives’ rate of less than
0.0001% – meaning that the system, or any unit of the system, will make a mistake no more
than one time in one million encounters. And with embedded rules instructing the software to
favor non-lethal deterrence, our testing indicates that the WALL would mistakenly use excessive
force no more than once in two hundred million encounters.” (compromis, paragraph 25)
no emotion and unable to make moral decisions, inability to account for every scenario

If attacked through INTERNATIONAL LAW

Convention on Certain Conventional weapons not applicable because we are not a signatory
AND few signatories only. It is also not a customary law; “other devices” definition does not
apply because the WALL issues warning (clarification no.4 - 100 verbal warnings, 5 non lethal
warning shots)
Facing directly and deprivation of life - the WALL is not facing directly because of turntable and
there is no deprivation because the wall works in both ways, Adawa and Rasasa (compromis
par. 24 and 37)

Compromis Citations
1. False Positives and accuracy - 25
2. WALL description - 24
3. Training Data - 20
4. Compliance of International Law - 23
5. Satisfaction of WALL - 26
6. Failure of joint task force - 29
7. Evolution to organized militias; territorial control - 34-36
8. Purchase and Deployment of WALL - 37
9. Creation of fear - 40
10. Minister meeting and substantial inroad - 41

Conventions Signatories
1. 4 Geneva Conventions
2. ICCPR
3. ICESCR
4. Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Treaties
5. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
6. Treaty of Botega
7. ICRC ( The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral,
and independent organization whose independently humanitarian mission is to protect the lives
and dignity of victims of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance. The
ICRC is funded by voluntary contributions from the States party to the Geneva Conventions. 17
February 1863, Geneva, Switzerland)

(3rd DEFENSE ARMED ATTACK)

-COHP and LEP

Use of WALL under IHL

In terms of the actual usage of the WALL, IHL will then apply.

The ICRC convened an expert meeting in Geneva on January 26-27, 2012. This meeting
brought together 22 prominent practitioners and academics with expertise in use of force issues,
participating in their personal capacity and coming from 16 different countries.
The use of lethal or potentially lethal force by armed forces and law-enforcement officials is
governed by two different paradigms: the conduct of hostilities paradigm, derived from (IHL) and
the law enforcement paradigm, mainly derived from Human Rights Law.
The principles governing the conduct of hostilities and law enforcement paradigms operate
differently. The main differences can be summarised as follows:
1. PRINCIPLE OF NECESSITY
(COHP) the military necessity to use force against legitimate targets is presumed. In other
words, the presumption is that combatants/fighters can be attacked with lawful means while
civilians are protected against direct attack, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in
hostilities.

With vanishingly close to 100% accuracy, the WALL will prevent illegal border crossings, while
virtually guaranteeing that no mistakes will be made and no innocents will be harmed.
Law-abiding Rasasans and our Adawan neighbors need have no concern; they may go about
their lives just as they did before, and so long as they do not act out of intent to injure our
country, they will do so in safety and tranquility. [Compromis, paragraph 39]
(LEP) the principle of “absolute necessity” implies that the use of force must be the last resort
and can be undertaken only in order to pursue a legitimate aim, such as self-defence, effecting
a lawful arrest, preventing the escape of a person lawfully detained, or quelling a riot. In brief,
force must be absolutely necessary in order to maintain public security, law and order.

2. PRINCIPLE OF PROPORTIONALITY
-(COHP) the IHL principle of proportionality protects only surrounding civilians and civilian
objects from damage which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military
advantage anticipated of an attack. The legitimate target of an attack (combatant, fighter or
civilian directly participating in hostilities) is not covered by the principle of proportionality under
IHL. [Refer to proportionality argument discussed above]
-(LEP) Whenever the lawful use of force and firearms is unavoidable, the human rights
proportionality test leads to a need to use the smallest amount of force necessary (including
possibly through the use of less than-lethal weapons) and to apply an escalation of force
procedure unless this appears impossible.

Finally, in human rights law, the use of force must avoid as far as possible deaths or injuries of
bystanders, while the IHL principle of proportionality prohibits only excessive incidental civilian
losses.

3. PRINCIPLE OF PRECAUTION
-(COHP) requires belligerents to take constant care to spare the civilian population, civilians and
civilian objects.
-(LEP) all precautions must be taken to avoid, as far as possible, the use of force as such, and
not merely incidental civilian death or injury or damage to civilian objects. State agents shall
thus endeavour, to the greatest extent possible, to minimize injury and respect and preserve
human life.
(In non-international armed conflict, when a State is using force against fighters, it may be
considered as simultaneously conducting hostilities and maintaining law and order (since
fighters are also frequently criminals under domestic law)

FACTS:

Autonomous weapon systems, as defined in ICRC, are not specifically regulated by IHL treaties.
However, it is undisputed that any autonomous weapon system must be capable of being used,
and must be used, in accordance with IHL. The responsibility for ensuring this rests, first and
foremost, with each State that is developing, deploying and using weapons. (state responsibility)
Those who plan, decide upon and carry out an attack using an autonomous weapon system
must, therefore, ensure that the weapon system and the way it is used preserve their ability to
make these necessary legal judgements, and thereby ensure compliance with IHL.
While the primary subjects of IHL are the parties to an armed conflict, the rules on the conduct
of hostilities—notably the rules of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack—are
addressed to those who plan, decide upon and carry out an attack.