Authors: Yashita Dhaundiyal and Kakul Sharma

Abstract

The battlefield has always been a place of destruction where behind every act of war, there was always a human being who could judge, take responsibility, and was bound by law. But now, that assurance is fading. Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly in modern military systems. Systems like drones are no longer waiting for commands; they identify targets, select them, and engage them by themselves. We can no longer say that a human is behind every act of violence. As these systems move from movies into real life, the world has to ask: can a machine fight a war legally? Can a machine also be bound by law? This paper’s focus is to examine the legality of autonomous weapon systems under international law, focusing on the challenges they are going to bring to accountability, humanitarian rules, and global regulations. This is not just a theory; it is a real, practical problem. The United States, China, Russia, and Israel have already developed these systems, and AI-assisted targeting systems are already part of the defense strategies of major military powers, making real decisions with little to no human oversight.

What is still missing is any real international accountability. As legal scholars have called it, this is a responsibility gap; a fundamental crack in the moral architecture of war itself. When a target is selected, when a life is taken, someone has to answer for it. Autonomous weapons challenge that premise at its very core, and the international legal order has not caught up. The main argument of this paper is that autonomous weapons as they exist today create serious conflicts with the foundational rules of international humanitarian law; and this responsibility gap must be addressed urgently, because war has always needed accountability, and that does not go away just because the combatant no longer has a face.

Keywords: Autonomous Weapons Systems, International Humanitarian Law, Responsibility Gap, Accountability, Artificial Intelligence in Warfare