Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is a state party to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Kazakhstan supports the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems.

In December 2025, Kazakhstan co-sponsored and 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, Kazakhstan 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, Kazakhstan 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 2024, Kazakhstan endorsed the Chair’s Summary of the 2024 Vienna conference ‘Humanity at the Crossroads: Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Challenge of Regulation’ . The Chair’s Summary affirms the ‘strong commitment’ of the endorsing states to ‘work with urgency and with all interested stakeholders for an international legal instrument to regulate autonomous weapons systems.’

In December 2023, Kazakhstan 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 77th UN General Assembly First Committee meeting in October 2022, Kazakhstan said that ‘Another emerging area that requires attention is the fast-paced introduction of autonomous weapons systems with direct and indirect effects across the spectrum of disarmament and international security issues, including nuclear-weapon doctrines, outer space security, and cyber capabilities for hostile acts. We are aware that no weapon system could ever be capable of performing such judgments in conformity with humanitarian principles, as the application of international humanitarian law is predicated on human judgment and accountability.'^[1]Statement by Kazakhstan, UN General Assembly First Committee, 11 October 2022, https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/1com22/statements/11Oct_Kazakhstan.pdf

Kazakhstan has stated that autonomous weapons systems ‘have the potential to challenge the most basic principles of international law, in particular IHL. It remains to be proven that an autonomous weapons system would be able to comply with three fundamental IHL principles.’^[2]Statement by Kazakhstan, UN General Assembly First Committee, 23 October 2019, https://www.un.org/disarmament/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/statement-by-kazakhstan-cw-oct-24-19.pdf