Ghana

Ghana is not currently a State party to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). However, it welcomed the opportunity to be able to articulate its views on autonomous weapon systems at a 2016 CCW meeting. Ghana has participated in a number of CCW meetings on autonomous weapons systems since 2014.

Ghana supports the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems. In its statement at the 2016 CCW informal meeting of experts on lethal autonomous weapons systems, Ghana stated that ‘we need to avoid moving in this direction of self-perfection to the promotion and preservation of human dignity for humanity as a whole. History confirms that today’s victim can become tomorrow’s perpetrator, especially, when we take into consideration the ever increasing development and spread of technology… In our view fully automated lethal systems must be proscribed before they are fully developed’.^[1]Statement by Ghana to the Convention on Conventional Weapons informal meeting of experts on lethal autonomous weapons systems, April 2016, … Continue reading

Ghana is a member of the African Group within the United Nations, and is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, both of which support the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems. During the third session of the 2021 CCW Group of Governmental Experts on lethal autonomous weapons systems, the African Group said that autonomous weapons systems raise a number of ‘ethical, legal, moral and technical questions’, and that it looks forward to ‘concrete policy recommendations including elements of a legally binding instrument, stipulating prohibitions and regulations’ on autonomous weapons systems’.^[2]Statement by the African Group, CCW Group of Governmental Experts meeting on LAWS, 3rd December 2021, http://149.202.215.129:8080/s2t/UNOG/LAWS3-03-12-2021-AM_mp3_en.html; please note that this link … Continue reading