The question now is what happens next and how will the mandate be implemented when UN discussions on this issue resume in June. While fully autonomous weapons systems do not yet exist, experts agree that they soon will.
Putting controls on remote warfare to protect civilians
Earlier this year, Amnesty International (AI) released a report, The Hidden US War in Somalia: Civilian Casualties from Air Strikes in Lower Shabelle. According to this report, which explored five incidents, at least 14 civilians had been killed by airstrikes from both manned aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones).
Are emerging technologies making us safer?
Technology companies, governments, and militaries all want the rest of us to trust new systems and emerging technologies that employ artificial intelligence to provide services, assist in policing, and even wage war more effectively and efficiently. They want us to feel “safer” with emerging technologies and artificial intelligence (AI). Do we? Should we? Published in The Ploughshares Monitor Volume 39 Issue 3 …
Customers or allies? The dilemma of Canada’s AFCCL
In late 2017, the government of Canada added Ukraine to the Automatic Firearm Country Control List (AFCCL) of 40 states to which Canadian weapons producers can legally export automatic firearms. This decision was made in the fourth year of an increasingly entrenched conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region involving separatist forces, Russian forces posing as irregulars, and Ukrainian government forces, which, …
Largest Canadian Military Contractors 2012-13
Author Ken Epps The 20 largest Canadian military contractors were awarded a total of $2.1-billion in prime contracts during fiscal year 2012-13, according to official sources (see Table 1). This year’s total represents a 39 per cent decline from the $3.5-billion contract total for the top companies in the previous year (Epps 2012). The contracts were awarded to the Canadian-based …