In this policy brief, entitled “Time for Canada to Take Stand on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems,” and published by the Center for International Governance and Innovation (CIGI-Online), I explain the current state of negotiations on autonomous weapons systems (AWS) within the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (the CCW), examine Canada’s studied ambiguity and neutral position within that process, and make the argument for why Canada should take a stand in support of a binding international treaty to govern AWS.
The full brief is available at the link above, but here are the “key points” and Introduction:
Key Points:
- Canada has maintained an understandable posture of ambiguity on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), particularly within the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) process.
- Canada should now take a stand within the CCW and support the negotiations based on a “rolling text” — a proposed multilateral framework for governing LAWS that is the most developed yet produced.
- The substance of the rolling text is closely aligned with Canada’s stated positions on ensuring meaningful human control, as well as insisting that all aspects of the development and deployment of LAWS must be subject to, and comply with, international humanitarian law (IHL). Canada’s substantive contributions to the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) within the CCW — including working papers on algorithmic bias and IHL-based regulatory architecture — and its legacy in humanitarian treaty-making position it well to lead on shaping the proposed prohibitions and regulations.
Introduction: The Issues
Since the early 2010s, there have been debates over whether autonomous weapons systems (AWS) can fully comply with international humanitarian law (IHL), whether existing IHL treaty regimes can adequately govern the operation of AWS, and what form any new constraints on AWS should take. The primary forum for inter-state discussion of these issues has been within the institutional framework of the CCW, and since 2016, by the GGE within the CCW.
For many years that consensus-based process showed little hope of making any meaningful progress. Canada’s own approach to the issues has been characterized by studied ambiguity. On the one hand, it has articulated support for a ban on fully autonomous AWS and participated substantively in the GGE process. On the other hand, it has avoided any concrete support for the negotiation of new binding international obligations or even enacted any meaningful domestic constraints on military artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and AWS development at home.
There are compelling reasons for Canada to now take a stand and even exercise leadership in resolving the issues regarding the governance of AWS. First, matters are coming to a head within the GGE. It was given a mandate by the CCW in 2023 to formulate a “set of elements of an instrument” to address the issues relating to LAWS. That mandate is set to expire at the CCW’s annual review conference in November of this year. Many see this as the last chance for the CCW to develop any significant constraints on LAWS.
Second, there have been meaningful developments within the GGE that suggest that there is some chance of success in achieving a resolution. In September 2025, Brazil led a group of 42 states in supporting negotiations on a “rolling text” as the basis for a new instrument, and in March 2026, the number of states supporting this position grew to over 70 states, which is more than half of the state parties to the CCW (Group of Governmental Experts of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems 2026). There is thus an increasing chance that the rolling text, which represents the most developed multilateral framework for governing LAWS yet produced, could form the basis of a new legally binding agreement. What is more, the positions advanced in the rolling text are substantively aligned with the positions that Canada has articulated as being crucial with respect to the governance of LAWS and are designed to better ensure that the development and deployment of LAWS will comply with IHL.
Finally, while there are few other existing fora for quickly developing a new governance structure for AWS or adjusting the existing IHL regime to better govern AWS, the pace of technological advance is rapidly overtaking the process. AI targeting and AWS with very limited meaningful human supervision have arguably already been deployed to varying degrees in hostilities in Gaza (Abraham 2024; Mako 2026), Libya (Panel of Experts on Libya 2021), Ukraine (Wells 2026; Bondar 2025), and even in the conflict against Iran this year (Nature Editorial Board2026). The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and a growing number of legal academics and policy makers have advanced strong claims that AWS with little or no human supervision or control will not be capable of complying in all circumstances with the core IHL principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack, and that new binding AWS-specific rules are thus necessary (Martin 2025, 7–10, 30–44).
This policy brief will briefly expand on these points and lay out a set of recommendations for why and how Canada should support and engage with the negotiations on the rolling text with a view to establishing a binding agreement on LAWS.