Dan Saxon taught international law at Leiden University College in The Hague. Formerly, he was a Senior Prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and legal adviser to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry for Syria.
Lethal autonomous weapons systems – ‘killer robots’ — are no longer the stuff of science fiction. Their champions argue that taking targeting decisions out of the hands of fallible humans will save lives in wartime. In this powerful and rigorously reasoned critique, legal expert Dan Saxon warns that very soon the speed and complexity of the weapons will make it impossible to keep human decision makers in the loop. The result is a disastrous loss of responsibility – and responsibility lies at the heart of war fighters’ human dignity and capacity for empathy. This is the best book I know on the law and morality of autonomous weapons systems. * David Luban, Georgetown University Law Center * Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the moral and legal challenges posed by the use of lethal autonomous weapons. Saxon adeptly traverses multiple bodies of law to examine how such weapons will erode moral agency, human dignity, and international law. * Sarah Knuckey, Columbia Law School *