Up against Goliath? Killer Robots and the Military Industry

“The big difference to me is, when we were fighting against landmines … the resistance from the companies was very small. […] [Now,] The military industry is pushing this [the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems] very hard.”

For WAPT, Jody Williams elaborates on how the strategy for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines in the 1990ies differs from the current Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Both campaign strategies embrace the power of concerted civil society action and governments willing to champion political change on these matters. Yet with the military industry vehemently pushing the advance of lethal autonomous weapon technologies and high-level talks in Geneva shying away from addressing these corporate influences, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots faces a different kind of enemy.

Jody Williams is a life-long activist and Nobel Peace Price Laureate. She also founded and chairs the Nobel Women’s Initiative.

The interview was recorded in Soesterberg, The Netherlands, on April 17, 2016.