The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into military applications such as weapon systems decision-support tools and various other tasks poses opportunities and challenges to international peace and security. Military applications of AI can exacerbate and amplify existing risks and could also lead to new unintended consequences. Rapid developments in this technological domain have outpaced the development of guardrails to mitigate such risks. This publication aims to enhance the international community’s understanding of the governance of AI in the military domain. It outlines the opportunities and risks associated with military applications of AI highlights areas of contention within the expert and diplomatic communities and offers policy recommendations and options for its multilateral governance.

The COVID-19 outbreak posed an unprecedented challenge to intergovernmental disarmament institutions and processes. This publication offers an extensive review of relevant developments at the United Nations particularly in the General Assembly and the Security Council as well as in the disarmament machinery and other disarmament bodies and processes. After comparing the varying responses to the pandemic the author considers whether the outbreak should serve as a catalyst for rethinking and changing multilateral working methods or rules of procedure.

From June 2018 to December 2019 the European Union and the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs held a series of regional workshops and expert meetings to promote participation in the high-level fissile material cut off treaty (FMCT) expert preparatory group consultative process by States in Africa in Asia and the Pacific and in Latin America and the Caribbean. This Occasional Paper offers a review of the project’s outcome as well as perspectives shared by participants in its workshops and expert meetings. For additional context a brief introduction to the purpose and history of the proposed treaty is also provided.

This paper offers a preliminary analysis of the effects of COVID-19 (coronavirus) on the ammunition management sector in the spring of 2020. It raises key issues related to the risks associated with conventional ammunition through the implementation of relevant control and management measures. It argues that shifts in national priorities and reduced resources may affect overall international disarmament efforts by undermining the management of conventional ammunition and potentially enhance the risks of accidental explosions and diversion. Ammunition management needs to remain a priority during and after COVID-19.

This publication describes the achievements and shortfalls of the first twenty years of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use Stockpiling Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction which entered into force on 1 March 1999. Published with the aim of bringing together diverse perspectives on this key instrument of humanitarian disarmament the paper was written by pioneers and luminaries of the movement that helped achieve the Convention and that committed themselves towards realizing the Convention’s full implementation. Each chapter contains discussions of an element of the Convention.

This document summarizes the main findings and implications of the first empirical study investigating the scale and scope of arms trafficking on the dark web which was conducted by RAND Europe and the University of Manchester from September 2016 to July 2017. There is an ongoing debate over the extent to which online black markets on the so-called “dark web” the part of the Internet not searchable by traditional search engines and hidden behind anonymity software facilitate arms trafficking. Details have emerged in the media following the Munich shooting in 2016 linking the weapons used by the attacker to vendors on dark web marketplaces (also known as cryptomarkets). Some media reports have also linked the Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015 to these platforms. While these reports appear to have raised concerns about the role of such dark web markets in arms trade evidence on the subject is largely anecdotal based on secondary data as reported after events such as terrorist attacks or successful law enforcement operations.

This publication considers lethal autonomous weapon systems approaching the issue from five different perspectives. It has been published ahead of the first meeting of the Group of Governmental Experts of the High Contracting Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons mandated to examine issues related to emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapon systems in the context of the objectives and purposes of the Convention. The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs Occasional Papers are a series of ad hoc publications featuring in edited form papers or statements made at meetings symposiums seminars workshops or lectures that deal with topical issues in the field of arms limitation disarmament and international security.

The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) Occasional Papers is a series of ad hoc publications presenting in edited form papers or statements made at meetings symposiums seminars workshops or lectures that deal with topical issues in the field of arms limitation disarmament and international security. They are intended primarily for those concerned with these matters in Government civil society and in the academic community. This Occasional Paper is a collection of High Representative Angela Kane's speeches during her visit to New Zealand in April 2014. The speeches she delivered at a range of venues provide a comprehensive stocktake of the prospects and challenges currently confronting disarmament and arms control efforts. Her balance sheet registers both progress most notably in the field of conventional arms (in particular last year’s historic adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty) and a lack of progress—especially as regards nuclear disarmament.