Drone strikes: Targeted killings raise troubling questions

Their increasing range and automation are a matter of global concern

Lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) are fully machine- and systems-controlled and depend on facial recognition and artificial intelligence. Such drones operate only on the basis of ex-ante data inputs about the target and are independent of human discretion in effecting a strike. In this context, there is media speculation that the first such LAWS drone attack took place in Libya in March 2020. It is ironic that the acronym for this weapons-system is LAWS since there is no international convention limiting or providing a context for the use of such weapons. Currently, there is no publicly available information about the