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Given the swift technologic development, it may be expected that the availability of the first truly autonomous weapons systems is fast approaching. Once they are deployed, these weapons will use artificial intelligence to select and attack targets without further human intervention. Autonomous weapons systems raise the question of whether they could comply with international humanitarian law. The principle of proportionality is sometimes cited as an important obstacle to the use of autonomous weapons systems in accordance with the law. This article assesses the question whether the rule on proportionality in attacks would preclude the legal use of autonomous weapons. It analyses aspects of the proportionality rule that would militate against the use of autonomous weapons systems and aspects that would appear to benefit the protection of the civilian population if such weapons systems were used. The article concludes that autonomous weapons are unable to make proportionality assessments on an operational or strategic level on their own, and that humans should not be expected to be completely absent from the battlefield in the near future.

The intense and polemical debate over the legality and morality of weapons systems to which human cognitive functions are delegated (up to and including the capacity to select targets and release weapons without further human intervention) addresses a phenomena which does not yet exist but which is widely claimed to be emergent. This groundbreaking collection combines contributions from roboticists, legal scholars, philosophers and sociologists of science in order to recast the debate in a manner that clarifies key areas and articulates questions for future research. The contributors develop insights with direct policy relevance, including who bears responsibility for autonomous weapons systems, whether they would violate fundamental ethical and legal norms, and how to regulate their development. It is essential reading for those concerned about this emerging phenomenon and its consequences for the future of humanity

In Autonomous Weapons Systems and International Norms Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss present an innovative analysis of how testing, developing, and using weapons systems with autonomous features shapes ethical and legal norms, arguing that they have already established standards for what counts as meaningful human control.