SGI at 2024 Vienna Conference on Autonomous Weapons Systems

Global 2024

Four people on a stage engaging in a discussion.

Panelists from left to right: Sanya Rajpal of the SGI Office for UN Affairs, Gugu Dube of Automated Decision Research, Elisabeth Hoffberger-Pippan of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, and Peter Asaro vice, chair of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and associate professor at The New School [© Seikyo Shimbun]

On April 29 and 30, the 2024 Vienna Conference on Autonomous Weapons Systems was hosted by the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs. The conference was titled “Humanity at the Crossroads: Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Challenge of Regulation” and attended by over 1,000 participants from 144 states. On April 30, Hayato Yamashita, program coordinator for Peace and Global Issues, delivered a statement on behalf of the SGI (Soka Gakkai International), calling for an international treaty to prohibit and regulate autonomy in weapons systems.

On April 28, the Stop Killer Robots coalition hosted the civil society forum at which Sanya Rajpal of the SGI Office for UN Affairs joined a panel discussion on digital dehumanization and human rights, and Mr. Yamashita spoke at a workshop on interfaith perspectives on autonomous weapons. The “Automated by Design” exhibition, curated and produced by Identity 2.0 for Stop Killer Robots in partnership with Amnesty International and the SGI was also showcased throughout these events.

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