Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental human rights organization. Its AI-policy work includes advocacy on autonomous weapons, where it seeks a legally binding international treaty prohibiting weapons systems that operate without meaningful human control, and it was among the civil-society organizations that joined the Partnership on AI after its 2016 founding (Partnership on AI (PAI)).
Positions on autonomous weapons
In February 2023, three weeks after the reissuance of US DoD Directive 3000.09, HRW and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic published a review arguing that the directive's standards were too weak: that "appropriate levels of human judgment" is undefined and the 2023 text drops the word "control"; that the move from "shall" to "will" and from "ensure" to "sufficient confidence" lowers the threshold; that the "unintended engagement" definition excludes indirect civilian harm; and that no senior review had ever been triggered. They sought an international, legally binding treaty prohibiting autonomous weapons without meaningful human control, a ban on anti-personnel autonomous weapon systems, and a government-wide US policy (DoD Directive 3000.09 — Autonomy in Weapon Systems).
HRW participated as a non-governmental organization in the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on lethal autonomous weapons systems (Report of the 2024–2025–2026 Sessions of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS (CCW/GGE.1/2026/3)). In a 7 September 2026 assessment of the Group's final report, it described the report as "significantly watered down," named Russia and the United States among states that weakened it by insisting on changes to widely supported provisions, and listed as removed references to design and development, to ethical considerations, and to predictability, reliability, explainability and traceability, together with a narrowing "from all international law to only international humanitarian law." It also stated that the report characterizes LAWS, "affirms that human control and judgment are required for compliance with international law," and "provides a sufficient foundation for launching negotiations," and, citing Stop Killer Robots, counted 76 states, 70 of them High Contracting Parties, supporting negotiations on a legally binding instrument before the November 2026 Review Conference (Source: hrw.org). Its list of removals corresponds to differences between the adopted text and the Group's June 2026 rolling text (CCW GGE Set of Elements on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (2026)).
Relationships
- contradicts: DoD Directive 3000.09 — Autonomy in Weapon Systems — 2023 review arguing the directive's standards are too weak
- related: CCW GGE Set of Elements on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (2026), Report of the 2024–2025–2026 Sessions of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS (CCW/GGE.1/2026/3) — assessment of the 2026 CCW text
- related: Stop Killer Robots, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) — allied advocates for a binding instrument
- related: Autonomous Weapons