Progressing the Legal Review of Autonomous Weapon Systems

This Report provides a summary of the Third Expert Meeting on the Legal Review of Autonomous Weapons Systems, which was convened by the Australian Government, in collaboration with the Asia-Pacific Institute for Law and Security, in Geneva from 10–11 March 2025. This Meeting built upon the first and second expert meetings, which took place in Sydney in 2023 and 2024.

The stated aim of this Meeting was to enhance State practice in legal reviews through the voluntary sharing of national practices. This was achieved on the first day of the Meeting by governmental experts providing presentations about their national practices as they pertain to the conduct of legal reviews, in particular the review of autonomous weapon systems,
and autonomous or artificial intelligence-enabled capabilities more specifically. A summary of the national presentations is included in Part 2 of this report.

In addition to facilitating information sharing on national legal review practices, this Meeting undertook to reflect on initiatives by the International Committee of the Red Cross, civil society and academia in support of national legal review practice. A summary of this update is included in Parts 3 and 4 of this report.