As the second session of the UN’s Group of Governmental Experts convened last month on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems to discuss measures relating to the normative and operational framework for emerging technologies, we interviewed Ishmael Bhila to ask him a few questions from the perspective of the Global South. Ishmael is a Doctoral Researcher in International Law at the University of Portsmouth. His research focuses on the contribution of small states to the making of international law relating to autonomous weapons systems. He utilises decolonial theories to understand the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in the making of international law. He is the founder of Virtual Planet Africa, an organisation that works towards the involvement of African youths in politics, development, and international politics/law. Virtual Planet Africa is a member of the Stop Killer Robots Campaign and focuses on getting African states fully involved in the ongoing discussions on autonomous weapons systems.
Q: At the GGE meeting in Geneva a few weeks ago, there was a noticeable dearth of representatives from African states there, why do you think that was?
There are several factors that have led to the non-participation of African states in the GGE meetings on autonomous weapons systems. Only 17 African states have contributed at least once throughout the lifecycle of the GGE since 2017, out of the 54 countries on the continent. The factors include, but are not limited to:
- A polycrisis of issues that have required more urgency on the African continent, including the proliferation of conflict, terrorism, insurgencies, the effects of Covid-19, energy crisis, the Russo-Ukraine war, and many other issues. In a conference paper, I argued that the focus on the polycrisis and relegating the urgency of autonomous weapons systems to the periphery is counterproductive for African states because they are a present threat to the continent’s peace and security, with the first AWS having been used against Libya.
- An unequal international law-making system. The CCW is exclusionary. There are 126 high contracting parties in the CCW, and 4 signatories- three of which are African. Of these combined 130 states, only 26 are African, comprising less than half the population of African states. In addition, as I will point out in the next point, not all of those who are part of the CCW can afford to attend and participate. Just a point to note- the report that was being discussed in the CCW was only printed in English; more than half of Africa (29 states) is Francophone!
- Most African states are in the Middle Income or Low-Income brackets as classified by the World Bank. A report by Article 36 showed that the less economically developed a state is, the less likely it is going to afford to participate in disarmament forums.
- Small missions: Zimbabwe has 12 people in the Geneva Mission. There are around 560 treaties under the UN on issues like disarmament, human rights, the environment, and many other issues. African states have very few diplomats to dedicate to all forums, and autonomous weapons systems have not taken priority.
- Very few African states have ambitions to develop or use autonomous weapons systems. You could maybe name South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt as going towards that direction, but most African states are focused on other issues. And these have fully participated in the discussions since 2013. This makes the issue of AWS almost a non-issue to those states who have no interest in their development. However, I have argued elsewhere that this is counterproductive because the weapons are going to be used against them.
Q: Do you think we’d have different concepts debated on and included in the report if there was greater participation from the Global South? I’m thinking particularly in terms of issues such as automation bias.
This is definitely a big issue, and it was one of my main observations! There was a clear attempt by Latin American and Caribbean states to include issues to do with race, ethnicity, gender, age etc. However, the first draft only mentions “inter alia, ethnicity, gender…” omitting race altogether and bunching it under ‘inter alia’. The final draft, which was developed way after working hours, removed the concerns altogether. To build on the last point in the previous question, small missions cannot afford to have people work overtime- the US delegation has multiple people, while some African delegations do not even have a single person representing them in the discussions, while some can only provide interns to represent them. My research showed that highly militarised states often played that hand- making sure discussions go overtime into the night so that dissenting voices, particularly from small states who seek security in international law, can go out of the room as they won’t be able to change their teams in the meetings. This means that issues like the racial bias of AI, which all delegations know is a reality, will be ignored in reports and international law.
Q: The Global South vs. Global North distinction doesn’t quite apply to LAWS as states such as Turkey and Libya from the Global South are developing and using these weapons, so do you think there is still a case to be made about these weapons from a TWAIL perspective?
On this question I would first qualify that Libya is not developing AWS but was the first country in which the Turkish STM KARGU-2 was used (which was referred to as having fully autonomous functions by a UN report of experts).
Now, I have a problem with the use of the term ‘Global South’ (not its existence- just how it is used). Scholars have often used it to bunch people together simply as an opposing view to a small collection of European states and the USA. Ingvild Bode from the Autonorms project has a paper on how the Global South has participated in AWS discussions and her colleague Anna Nadibaidze has also focused on Russia’s part in the discussions. For me, the fact that the Global South includes Russia, China, and India- states which are in one way or another in cahoots with the USA and the UK on the (almost) non-regulation of AWS- renders the concept of the ‘Global South’ almost useless when analysing participation and difference on AWS discussions.
On TWAIL- again, I don’t like the term Third World, it’s colonial and useless as an emancipatory framework. If I wanted to generalise, I would rather go with Non-Western Approaches to International Law. In the AWS discussions, states like Türkiye, Pakistan, India, Palestine, Cuba, and many others from the Global South have always had a clearly defined line of argument (which then differs when it comes to who is developing AWS and who is not). The basic argument is that ‘we do not want an imposition of anything on us and we need substantive sovereign equality’. Türkiye and India have been very vocal about this, although India seems to overdo it to the point of not making any meaningful contributions. The case for non-Western approaches remains- international law(-making) should be pluriversal! This remains the point for decolonial thought.
Q: What about notions that technology can be a great leveller when it comes to asymmetries in armed conflict and so in fact it’s the North which will acquire these weapons and then sanction states for their proliferation rather than allowing weaker, less powerful states to obtain them?
This is a very complex subject because the proliferation of weapons and military technologies is not symmetrical. Just to note, and to point out a significant security threat for most states, AWS can and will definitely be acquired by non-state actors. It is just a matter of installing AI to an already existing drone or other weapons. By 2019 there were more than 30 known private companies that were developing AWS. This means that these weapons will be everywhere, and their regulation will be as problematic as that of guns if their development is not regulated in time.
On how proliferation will be sanctioned- we do not have enough precedent to go on considering that the clearest example we have is that of nuclear weapons, and we do not know the extent to which AWS will be stigmatised (so far, they have been made to sound sexy to the public and civil society has relatively failed to fully stigmatise them).
So, I would say the time for action in international law is now. We never know how this will pan out if the window of opportunity closes and AWS gets into full use.
Q: Do you think the Global South will be able to rally and prevent the formation of any custom/rules allowing their use (even if we can’t get them banned), like we did with humanitarian intervention?
Yes, and no. There is a clear need for more urgency and awareness among people from the Global South. Most in the Global South have treated it as a future problem.
The only other way, which is very negative for me, is when the negative impacts of AWS have been realised in practice in the Global South (just like the R2P in Libya in 2011). In this case the Global South would quickly rally against their use. However, as I have alluded, this is not good for the Global South, and like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is the worst possible way to get lessons from history. We should rather follow the example of the Convention on Blinding Laser Weapons and act before AWS become a problem. The difference, I think, would be that AWS have already been too far ahead in production (and use/testing) that completely banning them is now an exercise in futility.
