Russia and the United States have pushed through changes to a United Nations treaty on autonomous weapons, stripping out ethical and human-oversight safeguards during closed-door talks in Geneva earlier this month.
The revised draft agreement, negotiated under the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), followed three years of talks. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said this marks the furthest progress yet toward establishing international rules for autonomous weapons.
Key safeguards removed
The rights group said the revised draft also removed language on predictability, reliability and design standards, and narrowed the treaty's scope from all international law to international humanitarian law.
Cameras were turned off and observers were excluded during the agreement, according to people familiar with the talks cited by The Washington Post. Russian and US delegations also deployed legal teams nearly twice the size of those from other countries during about 15 hours of last-minute negotiations.
Concerns over accountability
Nicole van Rooijen, executive director of the advocacy coalition Stop Killer Robots, accused Washington and Moscow of seeking to weaken the draft. Human rights groups warned that the changes could reduce accountability for civilian casualties caused by autonomous weapons.
The Washington Post also reported that the US and Russia removed a provision that would have required humans to review AI-generated targets before a weapon carried out a strike.
Separate developments
This comes after US President Donald Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to make a deal with Vladimir Putin to end the war. Speaking to reporters, Trump told Fox News: “You know what I want him to do? Make a deal. I want him to settle with Putin and I want Putin to settle with him.”
Ukrainian officials said at least four people were killed in the latest wave of Russian overnight airstrikes across the country. Two women died in Zaporizhzhia after becoming trapped under the rubble of their destroyed home, while a separate strike on Sumy killed two more people. In the Kyiv region, two people were injured after a Russian drone strike sparked a fire at a warehouse.
