I.    Who benefits from the deployment of autonomous weapons systems?  Who loses?

II.    Which of the debates between Schmitt and the human rights groups are based on disputes about facts, and which are disputes about law?  Are the disputes about facts capable of resolution at present, or do we have to wait until the devices are deployed, at which point arguably it is too late?

III.    Do you agree that there is a ‘gap’ in existing international law that fails to cover a killing – or a mass killing – by an ‘autonomous’ weapon system when the creator and deployer of the weapon would not have intended the death(s)?

IV.    The Open Letter suggests that working on killer robots is akin to working on bioweapons? Is this a fair parallel?  Are this letter and similar efforts likely to be an effective tactic?

V.    The US military hews strongly to a doctrine of “command responsibility” sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard.  This has been described as:

a duty to ensure that their troops respect that body of law during armed conflict and hostilities. Failure to do so may give rise to liability. A mere “breach of duty”, whereby the commander has not fulfilled the responsibilities expected of his rank, is usually dealt with through disciplinary action. However, where a commander fails to prevent or punish violations of IHL by subordinates, criminal proceedings are likely, and the punishment to be meted out will reflect the gravity and nature of the crime committed by the subordinate. … [M]ilitary commanders and other superiors have an affirmative duty to act in preventing violations of IHL by their subordinates. In essence, the commander acquires liability by default or omission. Having evaded his responsibility as a superior to intervene in ensuring the respect of IHL, he will be seen as accountable for his subordinates and, in certain circumstances, as even more culpable than them.

Is the use of autonomous weapons systems consistent with command responsibility?  If so, will the commander be responsible for whatever the AWS does? If not, does that mean, as Crotoff suggests, that no one is responsible? Is the deployment of weapons for which no one is responsible itself a potential war crime?

(subject to updates)