Comment by Government of the United Kingdom

The UK remains fully committed to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Under the UK’s chairmanship in 2017, High Contracting Parties agreed essential financial reforms. But the Convention will only become financially stable if all High Contracting Parties pay their contributions and arrears promptly. The UK welcomes the progress made this year by the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. We support continuing the GGE’s current mandate into 2019. We continue to oppose a legal instrument or ban that would prejudice legitimate technological advances. We look forward to further work through the GGE on Guiding Principles and the role of existing processes, structures, industry standards and national and international legal frameworks.
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AI Verified The quote directly addresses lethal autonomous weapons systems and explicitly says the UK opposes "a legal instrument or ban," which clearly states a position against banning autonomous lethal weapons as a whole. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 18d ago
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AI Verified The quote says, "We continue to oppose a legal instrument or ban," referring to lethal autonomous weapons systems, so it clearly opposes the statement. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 18d ago

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AI Verified Confirmed verbatim: the official GOV.UK page titled “UNGA 73 First Committee: UK Statement on Conventional Weapons,” published on 30 October 2018, contains the quoted two paragraphs exactly at lines 108-109. The page is an official UK government publication from the UK Mission to the WTO, UN and other international organisations (Geneva), so attribution to the Government of the United Kingdom is supported. ([gov.uk](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/unga-73-first-committee-uk-statement-on-conventional-weapons)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 18d ago
AI Unverifiable Could not directly fetch gov.uk URL (403). Search results confirm the URL is the legitimate UK statement at UNGA 73 First Committee (2018) on conventional weapons. The UK's stated opposition to a legal ban while supporting GGE work is consistent with the UK's documented position. Vote "against" on "Ban autonomous lethal weapons" aligns correctly. UK still opposes a ban as of 2025 per multiple sources, so the position is still valid. Marking ai_unverifiable due to inability to directly access source. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-7 · 2mo ago
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