The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have renewed their call for legally binding international rules governing autonomous weapon systems, warning that humanity is approaching a situation in which machines could independently select and attack human targets.
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric issued the warning in a joint statement on Tuesday, August 25, 2026.
They said the risks posed by autonomous weapons had intensified since their initial appeal three years ago for governments to establish clear prohibitions and restrictions.
“We are now dangerously close to crossing a moral red line: the autonomous targeting of humans by machines,” they warned.
Autonomous weapon systems are generally understood as weapons which, after being activated by a human operator, can select and apply force to targets without further human intervention.
The organisations said the rapid development of weapon technology was placing increasing pressure on existing legal frameworks and widening the gap between technological capability and regulatory control.
They warned that advanced technologies already being deployed on battlefields were increasing the risks to civilians and civilian infrastructure and worsening human suffering during armed conflicts.
“The development and use of autonomous weapon systems represent a further escalation, reducing human control over the use of force,” the statement said.
“Autonomous weapon systems are not part of a distant future — a race towards greater autonomy in weapons systems is already well underway.”
The UN and ICRC said scientists and engineers involved in developing advanced military technology had also raised concerns about its possible consequences.
“When the architects of this technology are calling for limits, states cannot afford to remain passive,” they stated.
The organisations are not proposing a general prohibition on every autonomous or artificial-intelligence-enabled military system.
Instead, they are asking governments to negotiate a legally binding international instrument containing specific prohibitions and restrictions.
The ICRC has recommended the outright prohibition of autonomous weapons whose operations and effects cannot be sufficiently understood, predicted or explained.
It has also called for the prohibition of systems designed or used to apply force directly against human beings.
Other autonomous weapon systems that do not fall within the proposed prohibitions should, according to the humanitarian organisation, be subjected to strict regulations to preserve meaningful human control and protect civilians.
The ICRC maintained that existing international humanitarian law applies to autonomous weapons but argued that additional rules were necessary to address the peculiar humanitarian, ethical and legal risks presented by such systems.
Among the concerns is the difficulty of establishing responsibility where an autonomous system causes unlawful deaths, mistakenly attacks civilians or breaches the rules governing armed conflict.
Guterres and Spoljaric warned that failure to regulate the technology could make accountability increasingly difficult as responsibility for errors and violations becomes harder to attribute.
“A failure to act quickly and decisively will cost lives,” they said.
“It will leave future generations to inherit a world in which the absence of clear and specific prohibitions and restrictions on these weapons opens the door to practices that would erode the protections international humanitarian law is meant to guarantee.”
Governments have been discussing lethal autonomous weapon systems through the Group of Governmental Experts established under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
The discussions have focused on human judgment and control, compliance with international humanitarian law, accountability, ethical considerations and possible prohibitions and regulations.
The UN and ICRC acknowledged the work undertaken through the United Nations General Assembly and the governmental experts’ group but said governments must move beyond gradual discussions to negotiations for binding rules.
“States must show political courage and move beyond incremental discussions towards decisive action,” the statement said.
“Negotiations must begin now to urgently adopt a legally binding instrument to regulate autonomous weapon systems with clear prohibitions and restrictions.”
The organisations identified the Seventh Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, scheduled for November 2026, as an important opportunity for governments to commence negotiations on a new international instrument.
They urged states not to abandon the progress made during the past three years, warning that autonomous systems could proliferate beyond meaningful control if international action was further delayed.
The organisations also stressed that human judgment must remain central to decisions involving the use of lethal force.
“Future generations will ask whether leaders acted when there was still a chance to set limits before these weapons proliferated beyond control,” they warned.
Guterres and Spoljaric concluded by urging governments to ensure that technological development remains subject to humanitarian values.
“The path is clear. The need is urgent. Innovation must serve humanity — not endanger it,” they said.
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