Adapting international law to the challenges of new technologies: artificial intelligence, autonomous weapon systems, and their regulation

The article explores the international legal challenges and required adaptations of international law in response to the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous weapon systems (AWS). It aims to evaluate the capacity of existing legal frameworks – particularly international humanitarian law, security law, and international criminal law – to ensure effective, ethical, and accountable regulation of military AI technologies. The study presents a systematic typology of legal risks associated with AI and AWS, including potential violations of the principles of distinction and proportionality under international humanitarian law, issues of legal attribution, gaps in state and individual responsibility, and the insufficiency of current export control regimes and institutional oversight mechanisms. Special attention is given to existing legal instruments such as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions 1949, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, various international export control regimes, and recent European legal initiatives such as the EU AI Act and the Council of Europe’s AI Framework Convention. The article concludes that the current legal architecture is fragmented, non-binding in many critical areas, and largely inapplicable to the military use of emerging AI technologies. It also emphasizes the limitations of soft law approaches (such as ethical guidelines and political declarations), which lack enforceability and legal certainty. In the final section, the author proposes a set of legal and institutional reforms to adapt international law to new technological threats. These include: the adoption of a dedicated multilateral treaty on AWS; the establishment of an independent monitoring and verification mechanism; the formal integration of the «meaningful human control» principle into international humanitarian law; and the expansion of export control regimes to cover military-grade AI software, algorithms, and training datasets. The article ultimately argues that, without proactive and structured legal adaptation, the unchecked development and deployment of military AI could undermine the fundamental principles of international law, including human rights protection, accountability for armed conflict, and global security.