South Africa should lead effort to ban slaughterbots as no country would be safe from fully autonomous weapons

Posted on April 16, 2018

As nations convene at the United Nations in Geneva this week (16 April to 20 April 2018) to continue deliberations on lethal 'autonomous weapons systems” or “killer robots”, 'it is clear that the diplomatic process is moving too slowly', according to Dr Thompson Chengeta, a TuksLaw fellow at the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa (ICLA) in the Faculty of Law of the University of Pretoria.  In the opinion piece of Dr Chengeta, which appeared in the Mail and Guardian of Wednesday, 11 April 2018, he urges South Africa to join other African countries like Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

In his commentary, Dr Thompson Chengeta warns about the devastating effects of killer robots (also known as autonomous weapon systems) and calls upon South Africa and other like-minded countries not only to adopt national legislation banning fully autonomous weapons systems, but also to push for an international ban and convince other countries to join them in this effort. 

Dr Chengeta obtained his doctoral degree on autonomous weapons under the supervision of Professor Christof Heyns, Director of ICLA and a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.  Dr Chengeta recently organised an African Union High Level Panel on autonomous weapons in Geneva.

Watch a movie from the campaign to stop killer bots.

- Author Mail&Guardian/Thompson Chengeta, ICLA

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