The article further develops ideas included in a report submitted by the author to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/23/47) on 30 May 2013, in C Heyns ‘Autonomous Weapons Systems: Living a Dignified Life and Dying a Dignified Death’ in N Bhuta and others (eds) Autonomous Weapons Systems: Law, Ethics, Policy (2016) 3, C Heyns ‘Human Rights and the Use of Increasingly Autonomous Weapons Systems (AWS) During Domestic Law Enforcement’ (2016) 38 Human Rights Quarterly 350–78, as well as in various submissions made to meetings of the State Parties of the Convention on Conventional Weapons.