Eritrea

Eritrea is not a state party to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

At the 78th UN General Assembly First Committee in 2023, Eritrea voted in favour of resolution L.56 on autonomous weapons systems, along with 163 other states. Resolution L.56 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.

Eritrea is a member of the African Group within the United Nations, and is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Both the African Group and the NAM support the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapon systems. In July 2021, a working paper on behalf of the NAM and other States Parties to the CCW was submitted to the Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS, which stated that ‘a strengthened and reinforced multilateral approach, with new legally-binding provisions for addressing the humanitarian and international security challenges posed by emerging technologies in the area of LAWS, is vital. There is an urgent need to pursue a legally-binding instrument on LAWS’.^[1]Non-Aligned Movement Geneva Chapter Coordination of the group of NAM and other states to the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on Emerging Technologies in the Area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons … Continue reading