The Observance of International Humanitarian Law by Autonomous Military Robots and the Responsibility for Their Actions

The multiple benefits of military robots compared with human combatants have caused these robots to be widely used in armed conflicts. Some of these robots that can act without remote control are Autonomous Military Robots. These robots have yet to find such a feature to totally observe rules of International Humanitarian Law such as the principle of discrimination and the principle of proportionality. According to the roles of multiple persons including producer, designer, programmer and warlords with respect to the actions of the robots, theories about their absolute responsibility, shared responsibility and absolute responsibility of persons have emerged. Due to the robot's full compliance with the program for which they are written, only human responsibility could be accepted for their actions. Therefore, despite the acceptance of primary responsibility of the person that uses robots, attribution of their conduct is generally based on the causal relationship between behavior and its cause of creation including incorrect programming or mechanical features of the robot.