Overview

This is a double-delegate committee.

The 6th Committee of the General Assembly, also known as Legal, is a subcommittee of the General Assembly dedicated to discussion of international legal matters. The committee focuses on providing legal frameworks for UN agendas and developing and codifying international law. In this committee, delegates will work together to create a legal framework to further regulate and define the developing tactic of cyberwarfare, focusing particularly on state-sponsored cyberterrorism. Additionally, this committee will also have the opportunity to review the ethics of autonomous weapons and discuss the ethical and legal questions surrounding their integration into modern warfare. Delegates must collaborate to define and codify clear boundaries that will help modernize international law.

Topic 1: Defining and Regulating Cyber Warfare

The first topic that will be discussed is  cyber warfare, the act of targeting online information systems in a cyberattack for strategic or military purposes. Cyberwarfare is rapidly developing as states invest more into it and as technology develops, such as artificial intelligence, and it is up to the legal committee to establish a more solid definition of cyberwarfare and implement regulations. Cyberwarfare has legitimate military purposes that many states take advantage of, but oftentimes it can be used to target civilian infrastructure in a way that violates human rights treaties. Additionally, cyberwarfare is not clearly defined and must be made less vague in order to implement any successful regulations. Many third parties have attempted to do just this, such as the Tallinn Manual, but these have been controversial and non-binding, so delegates will need to be thorough and skeptical when proposing solutions to this topic.

Topic 2: Ethics of Autonomous Weapons

The second topic will be the ethics of Autonomous Weapons  Systems (AWS). Autonomous Weapons Systems are systems that can select and engage targets without human intervention, using sensors and algorithms to identify and engage targets independently. This includes weapons like landmines, missile defense systems, and autonomous drones. Many of these systems have been in use for decades, but the development of AI creates the possibility of more AWS being widely used, creating a need for a true definition of AWS and comprehensive regulations. There is currently no established definition for AWS, and there is debate on ethics of the system, as many call AWS “killer robots” and violate human dignity, while many proponents of AWS claim that autonomy is a natural development in warfare and is necessary in order to carry out large scale operations for security purposes. Delegates will balance these two views and create definitive definitions of AWS and come to a consensus on the ethical implications of these weapons.

More information will be released in the coming months!