Bulgaria

Bulgaria is a member of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) and has participated in all CCW meetings on autonomous weapons systems. Bulgaria has not declared its position on the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems.

In December 2025, Bulgaria voted in favour of UN General Assembly Resolution 80/57 on lethal autonomous weapons systems. Mindful of the challenges and concerns autonomous weapons systems raise from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives, Resolution 80/57 stresses the urgent need for the CCW to address the challenges and concerns posed by autonomous weapons systems, and calls upon the High Contracting Parties of the CCW to ‘work towards completing the set of elements for an instrument being developed within the mandate of the Group of Governmental Experts, with a view to future negotiation.’

At the CCW GGE on LAWS in September 2025, Bulgaria joined a group of 42 states delivering a joint statement calling for the group to begin negotiations of an instrument on the basis of its ‘rolling text,’ and stating that they were ready to do this.

At the 79th UN General Assembly First Committee in October 2024, Bulgaria voted in favour of Draft Resolution L.77 on lethal autonomous weapons systems. Draft Resolution L.77 raises concerns about the ‘negative consequences and impact of autonomous weapon systems on global security and regional and international stability’ and stresses ‘the importance of the role of humans in the use of force to ensure responsibility and accountability and for States to comply with international law.’ It also notes ‘the repeated calls by the Secretary-General to urgently conclude negotiations of a legally binding instrument with prohibitions and regulations for autonomous weapons systems, in line with a two-tier approach.’ The Resolution will convene open informal consultations in 2025 over two days in New York, ‘to consider the report of the Secretary-General in full complementarity with and in a manner that supports the fulfilment of the mandate of the Group of Governmental Experts in order to further the international community’s understanding of the issues involved by discussing the full range of views received, including proposals and relevant aspects raised in the report that may thus far not have been discussed in detail in the Group of Governmental Experts.’

Bulgaria made a submission to the UN Secretary-General pursuant to Resolution 78/241 on autonomous weapons systems in May 2024.

In December 2023, Bulgaria voted in support of UN General Assembly Resolution 78/241 on lethal autonomous weapons systems. Resolution 78/241 stressed the ‘urgent need for the international community to address the challenges and concerns raised by autonomous weapons systems’, and mandated the UN Secretary-General to prepare a report, reflecting the views of member and observer states on autonomous weapons systems and ways to address the related challenges and concerns they raise from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives and on the role of humans in the use of force.

At the 2023 CCW GGE on LAWS, Bulgaria stated that ‘We should preserve human responsibility and accountability and maintain appropriate human control throughout the lifecycle of the weapon system.'^[1]Statement by Bulgaria, 2023 CCW GGE on LAWS, 15 May 2023, … Continue reading

On the importance of human control, Bulgaria has stressed that ‘human control must be exercised primarily over the application of force, however, it requires human control to be exerted and retained over the whole life cycle of an autonomous weapons system in order to ensure that deployment of such weapons systems fully complies with the international humanitarian law and its key principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution in attack.’^[2]Statement by Bulgaria, CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS, 05 August 2021, http://149.202.215.129:8080/s2t/UNOG/LAWS-05-08-2021-AM_mp3_en.html; please note that this link leads to the full … Continue reading

Bulgaria has said that it strongly supports the work of the CCW High Contracting Parties, and the ‘efforts in our mutual quest to clarify, consider and develop aspects of an effective and comprehensive normative and operational framework on LAWS.’^[3]Statement by Bulgaria, CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS, 06 August 2021, http://149.202.215.129:8080/s2t/UNOG/LAWS-06-08-2021-AM_mp3_en.html; please note that this link leads to the full … Continue reading

Bulgaria is a member of the European Union, which is ‘firmly committed to engaging in further substantive discussions and work on the different legal, technical and military aspects relevant to this group’s [GGE on LAWS] mandate on the clarification, consideration and development of aspects of the normative and operational framework bearing in mind ethical considerations.’^[4]Statement by the European Union, CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS, 25 September 2020, http://149.202.215.129:8080/s2t/UNOG/CCW-GGE-20200925-AM_mp3.html; please note that this link leads to … Continue reading