Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe 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 weapons systems at a 2015 CCW meeting.

Zimbabwe supports the negotiation of a legally binding instrument on autonomous weapons systems. In its statement at the 2015 meeting of CCW High Contracting Parties, Zimbabwe stated that ‘it is necessary to protect future generations from the wanton and mindless ravages that lethal autonomous weapons can bring upon humanity’, and said that it ‘joins like-minded delegations in calling for a pre-emptive ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems.’ Zimbabwe then added that it does not support a ‘scenario where decisions over human life and death are ceded or delegated to machines… without human judgment nor empathy, and have no sense of proportionality or force distinction between military and civilian targets’.^[1]Statement by Zimbabwe, CCW Meeting of High Contracting Parties, 12 November 2015,  … Continue reading

Zimbabwe 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 (GGE on LAWS), the African Group said that autonomous weapon 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 weapon systems.^[2]Statement by the African Group, CCW Group of Governmental Experts meeting on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, 3rd December 2021, … Continue reading