Norway

Norway has participated in all Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) meetings on autonomous weapons systems.

Norway has not yet declared its position on the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems. At the 77th UN General Assembly First Committee meeting in October 2022, Norway said that ‘We should also take necessary steps to regulate the development of autonomous weapons systems.'^[1]Statement by Norway, 77th UN General Assembly First Committee, 06 October 2022, https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1b/k1bl8m8o2l; please note that this link leads to the full recording & transcript … Continue reading In a subsequent statement at the same forum, Norway also said that ‘Autonomy has significant potential. At the same time, it raises serious legal, ethical and military concerns. It challenges our conceptions of control and responsibility. We must ensure that weapons systems featuring autonomy remain under meaningful human control. We have a window of opportunity to address these challenges by clarifying and elaborating adequate norms and rules before the technology fully matures.'^[2]Statement by Norway, 77th UN General Assembly First Committee, 19 October 2022, https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/1com22/statements/19Oct_Norway.pdf

At the Sixth Review Conference of the CCW in December 2021, Norway expressed its regret (regarding the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems) ‘that it was not possible for the group to benefit from the emerging understanding on the need to move forward’, noting that the topic of the group’s deliberations might no longer be a vague concept of the future, ‘but a concrete reality’, and said that the GGE on LAWS provides states with an opportunity to deepen common understandings ‘and agree on adequate regulations while the technology is being developed.’^[3]Statement by Norway, Sixth Review Conference of the CCW, 14 December 2021, http://149.202.215.129:8080/s2t/UNOG/RCHCP6-14-12-2021-AM_mp3_en.html; please note that this link leads to the full … Continue reading

At the 2021 GGE on LAWS, Norway said that it was ‘becoming increasingly clear that the human machine interface, notably the need to ensure meaningful human control, is the very core issue to ensure that emerging technology in the area of LAWS be compliant with international law, ethical and moral concerns’.^[4]Statement by Norway, CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS, 13th August 2021, http://149.202.215.129:8080/s2t/UNOG/LAWS-13-08-2021-PM_mp3_en.html; please note that this link leads to the full … Continue reading