On 1 November 2023, the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) of the UN General Assembly approved a draft resolution on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), expressing concern about the possible negative consequences and impact of autonomous weapons systems on global security and regional and international stability and stressing the urgent need for the international community to address the challenges and concerns raised by such systems.

The resolution, once endorsed by the General Assembly, would require the UN Secretary-General to seek the views of Member States and observer States on LAWS and on ways tp address the challenges and concerns they raise from humanitarian, legal, security, technological, and ethical perspectives, and to submit a report to the General Assembly at its seventy-ninth session.  The Assembly would also request the Secretary-General to invite the views of international and regional organizations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, civil society, the scientific community and industry and to include those in the annex to the report.

The ongoing work of the Group of Governmental Experts on Emerging Technologies in the Areaof Lethal Autonomous Weapons System (GGE on LAWS) -created under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons -is acknowledged in the resolution.

Within the First Committee, the draft resolution was adopted by a vote of 164 in favour to 5 against (Belarus, India, Mali, Niger, Russian Federation), with 8 abstentions (China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, T