The UN General Assembly votes on autonomous weapons
On 22 December 2023 the General Assembly adopted resolution 78/241 by 152 votes to 4, with 11 abstentions. It asked the Secretary-General to seek states' views on lethal autonomous weapons systems and report to the Assembly at its next session.
Why it matters
For the first time the question of autonomous weapons left the specialist disarmament track for a general vote where every state had to take a public position. The resolution prohibits nothing, but it was the first roll call of where everyone stood.
Belarus, India, Mali and Russia voted against. China, Iran, Israel, Madagascar, North Korea, Niger, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Syria, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates abstained. The resolution requests the Secretary-General "to seek the views of Member States and observer States on lethal autonomous weapons systems, inter alia, on 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", and to submit a substantive report to the Assembly at its seventy-ninth session. It also asks him to invite the views of international and regional organisations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, civil society, the scientific community and industry, and it places lethal autonomous weapons systems on the agenda of that session. Austria submitted the text, joined by 42 co-sponsors; in the First Committee on 1 November 2023 it passed by 164 to 5 with 8 abstentions, Niger then voting against. The figure 164 is often reported as the Assembly result, which is wrong: that was the committee vote and the two must not be conflated.