Over 70 states now support the CCW GGE ‘rolling text’ as a basis for negotiations

At the 2023 Meeting of High Contracting Parties of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), states mandated a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems to “further consider and formulate, by consensus, a set of elements of an instrument, without prejudging its nature, and other possible measures to address emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapon systems.” 

The Chair of the GGE, the Netherlands, has led the development of these elements since 2024 through presenting and iterating a ‘rolling text’ of elements of an instrument.

At the September 2025 session of the GGE, Brazil gave a joint statement on behalf of 42 countries stating that “while the rolling text remains a work in progress, it is a sufficient basis to fulfil the mandate of this GGE in its current form.” The group emphasised that the text “contains a set of elements that we consider as sufficient basis for negotiations of an instrument on lethal autonomous weapon systems,” and concluded that “we are therefore ready to move ahead towards negotiations within the CCW on the basis of the rolling text, and we invite all High Contracting Parties to support this goal.” 

This statement was also submitted to the November 2025 Meeting of High Contracting Parties of the CCW, as a working paper on behalf of 44 states. 

Between the joint statement and the working paper, at the close of 2025, 46 states in total¹ had expressed their support for moving forward towards negotiations on an instrument on autonomous weapons systems on the basis of the rolling text.

At the March 2026 session of the GGE, according to our monitoring, 41 countries stated their support for moving to negotiations on the basis of the rolling text through individual or group statements, including 26 countries that had not stated this before.² This included a statement from the African Group of High Contracting Parties to the CCW that highlighted the Group’s support for a legally binding instrument.

In total, 72 states have now expressed their support for moving to negotiations on an instrument on autonomous weapons systems on the basis of the text of elements under discussion at the GGE. Of these, 66 are High Contracting Parties to the CCW: a majority of the Convention’s Parties. (See Table 1 below for the full list.)

The mandate of the GGE concludes this year, and High Contracting Parties must decide if and how to continue their work on autonomous weapons systems under the CCW, at the Convention’s Review Conference in November. A new mandate could be agreed during the Conference.

Before then, a final session of the GGE will take place between 31 August and 4 September, during which states will consider the draft report of the GGE to the Review Conference, and how the work on the text of elements will be reflected in the report. 

Since our monitoring began, 130 states have expressed general support for a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems. With 72 states now having expressed support, specifically, for moving forward to negotiations based on the text on the table at the CCW (with some of these countries not yet having explicitly supported a legal instrument), it is clear that international discussions on autonomous weapons systems are entering a new phase.

In terms of which states are currently making their positions known in discussions, at the March 2026 GGE, we recorded interventions made in a national capacity or on behalf of a group by 49 countries in total. Of these, 5 countries made 10 or more contributions to the discussion (in descending order by number of interventions: Russian Federation, Austria, Pakistan, United States, and Brazil). 21 countries made 5 or more statements (in descending order: Australia, Ireland, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom, Canada, France, India, Japan, Switzerland, Cuba, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Türkiye, Colombia, Panama and Spain). Within this picture of the 26 countries that were most active in the latest round of discussions, 8 do not support a legally binding instrument, 12 have expressed their support for a legal instrument, and 5 have not declared their position.

Given that, overall across multilateral forums, only 12 states have explicitly spoken against a legally binding instrument, 130 in favour, and 53 are undeclared, contributions from states that are against a legal instrument currently appear significantly over-represented in discussions.

Table 1: Countries that have expressed their support for moving to negotiations on an instrument on autonomous weapons systems, on the basis of the text of elements under discussion at the GGE

1. Angola³, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kiribati³, Lesotho, Luxembourg, Malawi, Mexico, Montenegro, Mozambique³, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria³, North Macedonia, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Samoa³, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Spain, State of Palestine, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand³ and Uruguay
   ↩︎
2. Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire , Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Philippines, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Venezuela, and Zambia
   ↩︎
3. State is not a High Contracting Party to the CCW ↩︎