nations

UN fails to agree on ‘killer robot’ ban as nations pour billions into autonomous weapons research. Autonomous weapon systems – commonly known as killer robots – may have killed human beings for the first time ever last year, according to a recent United Nations Security Council report on the Libyan civil war. History could well identify this as the starting point of the next major arms race, one that has the potential to be humanity’s final one. The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons debated the question of banning autonomous weapons at its once-every-five-years review meeting in Geneva Dec. 13-17, 2021, but didn’t reach consensus on a ban. Established in 1983, the convention has been updated regularly to restrict some of the world’s cruelest conventional weapons, i...

There is a global effort to distribute vaccines to poorer countries, but some of the world’s largest countries, including the U.S., Russia and China, do not intend to support the effort. That lack of backing could have devastating consequences for accessing a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. and many poor countries around the world. That is because the U.S. will not have access to vaccines secured by the initiative, called COVAX. Also, COVAX may lack the funding it needs to help poor countries control their epidemics, enabling the virus to continue to circle the globe. I am an ethicist at Binghamton University and am interested in COVAX because I work on global health and justice. What is the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility? COVAX, formally known as The COVID-19 Vaccines Glo...

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As Nations Pour Billions Into Autonomous Weapons Research – UN Fails To Agree On ‘Killer Robot’ Ban

What Is COVAX And Why Does It Matter For Getting Vaccines To Developing Nations?