Article 36 Podcast

In this episode, Article 36 discusses the intersessional working groups that are taking place in 2023 ahead of the Second Meeting of State Parties (2MSP). Policy advisor, Elizabeth Minor, who also collaborates with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) gives an update on the content of the meetings and the progress – highlighting the work that Article 36 has focused on in particular on Articles 6 & 7 on victim assistance, environmental remediation and international cooperation and assistance.

In this episode, the Article 36 team discusses the second Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) meeting on autonomous weapons of 2023, which concluded on Saturday, 20th May. At the request of Russia, this meeting saw the exclusion of civil society and observers from the final negotiation of its report - a report that was predictably uninspiring. Richard Moyes, who attended the meeting in Geneva, provides a summary of the content of the report, and highlights that it fails to reflect the real momentum and energy we have already seen in 2023 towards a legal instrument on autonomous weapons.

In this podcast, Article 36 discusses progress in early 2023 towards a legally binding instrument to regulate autonomy in weapons systems. Richard Moyes and Uldduz Sohrabi go over the recently issued Communiqué by 33 Latin American and Caribbean states, the ReAim conference hosted by the government of the Netherlands, the upcoming Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) meetings, and discuss the work ahead.

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In this episode we discuss the United Kingdom’s position on the question of regulating autonomous weapon systems. The Article 36 team is joined by guest Maira Folly, coordinator of the UK campaign to Stop Killer Robots, to talk about all the recent updates and movements on the UK political scene, including the the House of Lords’ creation of a Special Select Committee on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Weapon Systems.

After years of building awareness of the humanitarian impacts from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, and seeking to advocating for an effective response to this issue, this year has seen important progress: namely, the development of an international political declaration. The declaration is the first formal international recognition that the use of explosive weapons in populated areas has severe humanitarian consequences and that these must be addressed urgently.

States will meet in Dublin, Ireland on 18 November 2022 to endorse the new political declaration. In this episode, Uldduz Sohrabi speaks to Laura Boillot and Richard Moyes to discuss how the issue was first framed, how it progressed, and what impact the political declaration can have in shifting norms and behaviour that can better protect civilians in conflict.