UN talks in Geneva on lethal autonomous weapons ended on September 5 with a final report that was much weaker than earlier drafts. Human Rights Watch says states including the US and Russia cut references to ethics, predictability, and reliability. The Washington Post reported on September 26 how the changes were made behind closed doors.
New to this? Read it in simple words
- Countries at the UN are discussing rules for weapons that can choose and attack targets on their own.
- Their latest text was made weaker at the last moment.
- Reports say the US and Russia removed rules about human checks and reliability.
- In November, countries decide whether to start talks on a treaty.
- Autonomous weapon
- A weapon that can find and attack a target without a person deciding each time.
- Treaty
- A written agreement between countries that they promise to follow.
- Consensus
- A decision that every country accepts, so one country can block it.
What was cut
Human Rights Watch says the final version removes references to predictability, reliability, explainability, and traceability. It also drops a reference to ethical considerations and to the design and development of the weapons.
The scope was narrowed too. Instead of all international law, the text now refers only to international humanitarian law, the laws of war.
According to three people familiar with the talks, the Post reports, a requirement for humans to review targets chosen by AI before a strike was also removed.
Human Rights Watch names Russia and the United States among the states that weakened the text.
From Human Rights Watch and The Washington Post. The US and Russia did not comment.
How it happened
The Post says the changes came on the last day, in about 15 hours of editing. The session was closed, with UN cameras turned off and civil society observers removed.
The US and Russia each brought about 10 lawyers, nearly twice as many as other delegations, according to the Post’s sources. One of them called it “death by a thousand paper cuts”.
The US State Department, the Russian foreign ministry, and the UN did not reply to the Post’s requests for comment.
Sources1
What comes next
Decisions at these talks need consensus, so a few countries can block progress. Nicole van Rooijen of the Stop Killer Robots campaign told the Post that the two countries “have the power to block any significant progress”.
Support for negotiations is still growing. Stop Killer Robots counts 76 states that back talks based on the text, although they gave that support for earlier, stronger versions.
Human Rights Watch says the adopted text is still “a sufficient foundation” for negotiations. Countries decide at a review conference in November whether to start talks on a new treaty.
Sources
Every fact in this story comes from the sources below. Open them to check our work.
- 1Research · September 26, 2026U.S., Russia stripped human oversight from global AI weapons pact The Washington Post via The Spokesman-Review
- 2Research · September 7, 2026UN Talks on Killer Robots ends with Calls for Negotiations Growing Human Rights Watch
- 3Research · September 4, 2026Over 70 states now support elements work at CCW GGE as a basis for negotiations Automated Decision Research (Stop Killer Robots)
We read The Washington Post’s report in a syndicated copy, then compared it with Human Rights Watch’s summary of the final session and the Stop Killer Robots count of supporting states. The Post relies on unnamed people and documents it reviewed. The US and Russia did not comment.