Germany reaffirms that Guiding Principle (e) underlines the importance of human responsibility during the phases preceding the deployment of a weapon system. Particularly for highly complex systems with autonomous functions, the development phase is of crucial importance since the configurations determining the behavior of the systems originate in this phase.
Guiding Principle (e) reflects Article 36 AP I to which Germany is bound. Germany implements this provision. The procedure of the weapons reviews is formalized in the armed forces’ central service regulation. Central elements guaranteeing the quality of the review are 1) the inclusion of qualified legal, technical and military — operational experts and 2) at least a hierarchical independence of the reviewing authority from the developer and the military user. The benchmark is public international law as it stands. However, this does not prevent States from integrating other considerations such as ethical or “law in development”.
In the context of emerging technologies in the area of LAWS, specific attention needs to be paid to modifications. Whenever modifications of a given system, for example in programming, are likely to change the behavior of the system in a way that affects the application of international law, a new weapon review is necessary.
In addition, the specific role of training data should be considered, when ‘AI’/machine learning is applied in the targets election and engagement since the data base or the way the algorithm interprets the data will substantially impact the predictability and reliability of the weapon system.
