International Responsibility of States and Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

The present paper will focus on the legal aspects of State responsibility, as a consequence of internationally wrongful acts resulting from the military use of artificial intelligence (AI). The first part will serve as a contextualization of the current stage of AI and its conceivable utility within the future of warfare. In this section, we will draw special attention to the development of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) and its potential impact in existing legal frameworks in matters of the responsibility of States. For this purpose, the following chapters will serve as a qualitative analysis through which the theory of the responsibility of States will be firstly synthesized, to then continue reflecting on its possible application in a case study about AWS. The analysis will focus on the ‘General Rules on State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts’ as laid down in the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts adopted by the International Law Commission, by examining the criteria for the emergence of an internationally wrongful act of the State, that is, first the breach of an international obligation of the State and then the attribution of such behaviour to said State. The criteria will be addressed in this very order, contrary to the sequencing of the Draft Articles, due to the particularly complex interaction between the rules of attribution and AWS. However, it will not be the aim of this paper, to carry out an exhaustive study about the multiple sources of international obligations of States nor the full content of the Draft Articles. On the other hand, it will also not be the objective, to delve into the discussions regarding the qualification of individual criminal responsibility. The analysis will ultimately stick to three elected substantive areas of international law, i.e., the ius ad bellum, the ius in bello and International Human Rights Law (IHRL), which may have a direct bearing on the legality of the use of AWS. Hence, this thesis will primarily address the question about the applicability of international law, more concretely the General Rules on State Responsibility, to internationally wrongful acts derived from the State use of AWS.