The Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, usually called the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), is a 1980 international humanitarian law treaty that restricts or prohibits specific categories of conventional weapon through annexed Protocols (International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)). Its states parties, called High Contracting Parties, meet annually and in periodic Review Conferences. Since 2014 the CCW has been the principal intergovernmental forum for discussion of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), through a Group of Governmental Experts whose final report of September 2026 contains a consensus "set of elements of an instrument, without prejudging its nature" (Report of the 2024–2025–2026 Sessions of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS (CCW/GGE.1/2026/3)).
Structure and Protocols
The Convention is a framework to which Protocols on particular weapons are annexed. The International Committee of the Red Cross shaped the 1980 Convention and its Protocols, including the 1995 Protocol IV on Blinding Laser Weapons, a prohibition adopted before the weapons were fielded (International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); ICRC Position on Autonomous Weapon Systems (source summary)). The mandate of the LAWS Group directs it to take "into account the example of existing Protocols within the Convention" (Report of the 2024–2025–2026 Sessions of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS (CCW/GGE.1/2026/3)). Reuters put the number of states parties at 128 in September 2026 (Source: reuters.com).
The CCW takes decisions by consensus. The LAWS Group was established by Decision 1 of the Fifth Review Conference (CCW/CONF.V/10), operated under the rules of procedure of the Sixth Review Conference, and was directed by the 2023 Meeting of the High Contracting Parties to "conduct its work and adopt its report by consensus" (Report of the 2024–2025–2026 Sessions of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS (CCW/GGE.1/2026/3)). The report lists officers of the CCW Implementation Support Unit and of the Geneva Branch of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) as the Group's secretariat, and the Convention's meeting documents are published by UNODA (Report of the 2024–2025–2026 Sessions of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS (CCW/GGE.1/2026/3)).
Work on lethal autonomous weapons systems
The CCW discussed LAWS from 2014 without producing binding rules, and the ICRC and others pursued a parallel UN General Assembly track opened by Resolution 78/241 of December 2023 (ICRC Position on Autonomous Weapon Systems (source summary)). Under a 2023 mandate the Group met for ten days in each of 2024, 2025 and 2026 and, on 4 September 2026, adopted by consensus a report containing a characterization of LAWS and twenty paragraphs of elements on IHL, control and human judgement, legal review, risk, testing, bias, and responsibility and accountability; the text is analysed on CCW GGE Set of Elements on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (2026). The report recommends that the Seventh Review Conference, to be held on 16–20 November 2026, "consider and endorse" the elements and decide by consensus on the Group's future work (Report of the 2024–2025–2026 Sessions of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS (CCW/GGE.1/2026/3)).
Positions on the next step divide between states preferring national guidelines, which Reuters identified as including the United States and Russia (Source: reuters.com), and states seeking negotiations on a legally binding instrument, which Human Rights Watch, citing Stop Killer Robots, counted at 76 in September 2026, 70 of them High Contracting Parties (Source: hrw.org).
Relationships
- related: CCW GGE Set of Elements on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (2026) — the 2026 LAWS elements produced under the Convention
- related: Report of the 2024–2025–2026 Sessions of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS (CCW/GGE.1/2026/3) — the Group's final report
- related: CCW Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems — the Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS
- related: United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) — secretariat staff and document publisher
- related: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) — shaped the Convention and its Protocols
- related: Autonomous Weapons