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Latest / Defence and security

StatementDefenceInternationalConfirmed

UN Secretary-General and ICRC president call for an autonomous weapons treaty by 2026

See how this story connects

Source: UN Office for Disarmament AffairsAlso reported by UN News

On 5 October 2023 UN Secretary-General António Guterres and ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric jointly asked states to open negotiations on a new legally binding instrument on autonomous weapon systems and to conclude them by 2026. They asked for a ban on weapons that select and strike people without human involvement and on systems whose effects cannot be predicted, such as those controlled by machine learning. Other autonomous weapons would face limits on where, when and for how long they are used, on targets and on force, with human supervision and the ability to deactivate them in time.

Why it matters

Governments in the UN and CCW talks had a public 2026 deadline from the two bodies that most states treat as authorities on humanitarian law, and later 2023 votes and mandates were measured against it.

When
5 Oct 2023
ID
WTA-N-2023-0142
Who
United Nations, International Committee of the Red Cross; António Guterres, Mirjana Spoljaric

Summary by wheresthe.ai, from UN Office for Disarmament Affairs and the reporting credited above. Checked against the source on 9 Oct 2026.

Read the original at UN Office for Disarmament Affairs

Source copy: download the page as saved on 18 Oct 2026 (PDF). Also held by the Internet Archive.

Next stop on this Storyline: What happened nextCCW states give the autonomous weapons expert group a three-year mandate to 2026

Cite this story

WTA-N-2023-0142: “UN Secretary-General and ICRC president call for an autonomous weapons treaty by 2026.” wheresthe.ai, 5 Oct 2023. https://wheresthe.ai/d/intl-unsg-icrc-joint-call-autonomous-weapons-2023-10/ (source: UN Office for Disarmament Affairs).

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