Human Rights Watch and others have called for a ban on the autonomous weapons systems but Boothby believes as long as there is a human capable of supervising targeting decisions made by machines and overriding them if they fail to distinguish between civilian and military targets they should remain legal. On development of autonomous weapons systems capable of identifying and attacking targets without human intervention, beyond the capability of the present generation of drones, Boothby takes the view that these “killer robots” are “unlikely to raise international weapons law concerns”. “The stated position of the UK government is that the development, production, retention, acquisition, or use of incapacitating chemical agents for military purposes is prohibited.” “A number of states are undertaking research in this field, either with a view to employing the technology or to developing countermeasures,” he said. He also points out that the ban on incapacitating chemical agents under the Chemical Weapons Convention is preventing development of non-lethal gases that could be used safely in anti-terrorist hostage operations such as the 2002 Moscow theatre siege. “A combatant whose weapon is rendered invisible by its coating is arguably not complying with the minimal requirements ,” he states.īoothby used to run the government unit responsible for ensuring that newly acquired weapons conform to the UK’s international humanitarian law obligations. Wearing an invisibility uniform might, it is suggested, additionally breach a combatant’s obligation to have a fixed distinctive sign recognisable at a distance and to carry arms openly. Similarly, camouflage that involves misuse of enemy, UN, protective, or neutral signs, flags and emblems is banned. “Conventional camouflage,” Boothby suggests, “aimed, for example, at causing the enemy to blend into the background, is lawful and bending light might be regarded simply as a technologically sophisticated way of achieving that outcome.”īut if camouflage is used to pretend to be a non-combatant in order to deceive the enemy and thereby to cause death, Boothby says, it could be outlawed under the Geneva convention clause entitled “prohibition of perfidy”. Under article 37 of the 1949 Geneva conventions, ruses such as camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation are all permitted. ![]() “As a result, an object can be made to disappear into the background for an observer using an infrared sensor it can also be used to mimic the infrared reading of a different vehicle, so a tank looks like a civilian car, for example.” “The same background pattern heat signature is then projected onto a series of hexagonal ‘pixels’ mounted on the target that can change temperature very rapidly to match the surroundings. “Patented ‘Adaptiv’ technology uses cameras on-board the target, such as an armoured vehicle, to pick up infra-red readings of the background scenery,” he notes. In Weapons and the Law of Armed Conflict, a comprehensive survey of emerging defence technologies published this month by Oxford University Press, Boothby highlights difficulties further technological success could pose. Their narrow profile, radar-absorbing paint and deflectors are intended to make them virtually invisible to enemy radar. ![]() The first stealth planes went into service with the US air force in the 1980s and took part in air raids on Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Such chameleon-style technology is not entirely new. ![]() Last year the US army announced it was planning to test prototype metamaterial uniforms. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has been one of the major funders of metamaterial science, triggering excitable comparisons with Harry Potter’s fictional invisibility cloak. Scientists and military contractors are spending tens of millions of pounds researching methods for generating effective invisibility through more sophisticated “metamaterials” – substances designed to absorb or bend light and/or radar waves in order to conceal approaching aircraft or troops.
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