Legal Issues for UVS

Abstract

Many of the advances in computing and technology have increased the decisionmaking capabilities of UVS to the point where they may now make truly independent decisions regarding by which route they might travel, what constitutes a target, and whether and by what means these targets should be engaged, possibly with lethal force. As a result, it is now widely acknowledged that, if permitted, the use of such systems would mark a sea-change in the role of technology in warfare as the human could potentially be removed from the decision-making loop. This introduces a number of issues that the need to be assessed in relation to the Law of Armed Conflict. In this chapter we discuss these issues.