Jordan

Jordan is a state party to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), and has attended a number of Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (GGE on LAWS) meetings. Jordan supports the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems. Jordan is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Arab Group within the UN, both of which also support the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons.

In December 2025, Jordan 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 79th UN General Assembly First Committee in October 2024, Jordan 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.’

In December 2023, Jordan 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 March 2023 meeting of the CCW GGE on LAWS, Jordan stated that it ‘supports all efforts aiming at restricting the use and determining the independence of LAWS’, and further stated that weapons systems ‘should not be able to make decisions without human control’, as this amounts to a ‘flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and the international law of human rights.'^[1]Statement by Jordan, CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS, March 2023, https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1a/k1aqbi9pj7; please note that this link leads to the full video recording of the relevant … Continue reading

At the March 2023 meetings of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (GGE on LAWS), Qatar delivered a statement on behalf of the Arab Group, in which the group stated that autonomous weapons raise ‘moral, technical and human questions, not to mention issues of international peace and security’, and said that ‘we must limit and outlaw the utilisation of such systems.’ The statement reiterated ‘the importance of maintaining meaningful human control’ to limit the ‘negative impact’ of such systems, and called for ‘an international legally binding instrument.'^[2]Statement by Qatar on behalf of the Arab Group, CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS, March 2023, https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1a/k1al2nqtt6; please note that this link leads to the full video … Continue reading