The unanimous vote means a multi-nation assessment of the technology will now begin, with the aim of yielding a “pre-emptive” prohibition before prototypes such as the Crusher become fully authorised weapons rolling off production lines from Texas to Beijing.
The decision by the CWC was greeted with relief by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a coalition of human rights groups and campaigners who argue that there is only a narrow window before the world’s competing powers are sucked into an arms race to produce machines capable, quite literally, of outgunning each other.
Mary Wareham, of Human Rights Watch, said: “This is small but important step on a ladder which we are saying to governments we want them to climb and create a treaty.”
Robotic military systems with varying degrees of lethality are under development – and in some cases already deployed – by the US, South Korea, China, Israel and the UK, as defence budgets around the world respond to the forces of austerity which demand greater capability for less money.