The Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (GGE LAWS), operating under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), adopted its 2024-2026 report in September 2026 with a compromise formulation: "control and human judgement." Paragraph 34 sets the operative line, reading in part:

"To uphold compliance with international law applicable in armed conflict, in particular the principles and requirements of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack, control and human judgement with regard to LAWS are needed. …"

Anna Andersson, Senior Researcher in International Law at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) and a former member of the Swedish delegation to the GGE, traces the consensus in a 7 October analysis. The post is the fourth in a FOI series on the report. Andersson wrote in her capacity as a researcher; the analysis does not reflect Sweden's position.

The wording captures the third of three major shifts in how the GGE defined human involvement in weapons systems that select and engage targets without further human intervention.

How did the formulation change?

Three notions commanded broad support at different stages:

• "Meaningful human control" — coined before 2016 by the civil-society organisation Article 36 and long supported by a cross-regional group of States and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
• "Human judgement and control" — first appearing as "appropriate control and human judgement" in the 26 July 2024 rolling text, then as "context-appropriate human judgement and control" from 12 May 2025.
• "Control and human judgement" — the final reordering that emerged from the Chair's Additional Suggestions ahead of the September 2026 session.

Which States drove each shift?

"Meaningful human control" drew support from a cross-regional group of States, expert bodies, and civil society, including the Stop Killer Robots campaign. Andersson, citing UNIDIR and Mauri (2022), describes the term as "intuitively appealing," noting that its accessible language "places the human being at the centre of an issue that challenges her role in warfare."

Russia rejected the qualifier "meaningful" but adopted "human control." India and the United States preferred "human judgment," citing concerns about creating a new legal concept.

In the 2019 report, the GGE concluded that "Human judgement is essential in order to ensure that the potential use of … [LAWS] is in compliance with international law, and in particular IHL." The 2023 report added that "Control with regard to … LAWS is needed to uphold compliance with international law, in particular IHL, including the principles and requirements of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack."

Paragraph 34 collapses those two prior statements into a single sentence.

Why did the United States shape the final wording?

By the March 2026 session, Andersson writes, "almost all States supported or could accept" the formulation "human judgement and control" — but the United States did not. Consensus required reordering the words. "Control" came first.

The change allowed Washington to accept the combination of "control" and "human judgment," which it had previously rejected. Andersson calls the move "a difficult compromise for many States." She adds: "These compromises indicate a genuine willingness for the Group to succeed."

What does paragraph 34 actually require?

The first sentence binds the concept to "international law applicable in armed conflict," replacing the rolling texts' narrower "international law, in particular IHL." Andersson flags that change as a late evening amendment on the final day of the September 2026 session.

The second and third sentences specify that:

"Human beings exercise such control directly or indirectly, including through measures taken before and/or during the use of LAWS. Regardless of how control is exercised, human beings need to exercise judgement to determine those measures necessary to ensure compliance with applicable IHL, including the principles and requirements of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack, and to implement such measures in practice. …"

Paragraph 34 closes by requiring that "a range of factors need to be considered, including the operational context and the characteristics and capabilities of the weapon system." Andersson reads that phrasing as merging two earlier strands — the qualifier "context-appropriate" and the human-machine interaction language from 2019 Guiding Principle (c).

Paragraph 34 is the only element in the report that uses the formulation "control and human judgement." The prior rolling texts applied the reverse phrasing to three to five elements, including a prohibition on LAWS that operate without it. The human being, Andersson observes, was thus significantly more central to the GGE's discussions than the 2024-2026 report reveals.

What measures survived in paragraph 35?

Paragraph 35 sets out a non-exhaustive list of relevant measures:

• (a) LAWS operated under a responsible chain of human command and control;
• (b) Limits on the scale, target types, duration, and geographical scope of operations, as appropriate;
• (c) Measures to intervene in the operation of LAWS, to the extent possible or feasible, including to deactivate or neutralise LAWS in a timely manner.

Andersson calls this list "a step forward from the Guiding Principles and the 2023 report," because it ties operational limits on LAWS to human agency and IHL requirements.

For practitioners advising on weapons review, the practical takeaway is direct: command-and-control chains, target-type limits, and intervention capability now travel together as operative language attached to IHL compliance.

Yet several measures discussed during the GGE did not survive. Andersson identifies four excluded items: capping the number of engagements; constraining LAWS to a defined perimeter; restricting their use against objects that are military objectives by nature; and ensuring appropriate training for human operators. Two further measures — human assessment of legal obligations and a human gate on substantial modifications to target or mission parameters — were cut during the September 2026 session itself.

What remains unresolved?

Paragraph 34 "does not elaborate in detail on what is required of the respective applicable principles and requirements in terms of human involvement in relation to LAWS," Andersson writes. The compromise reflects "the nature of diplomatic discussions as well as … the inherent difficulty of the issue at hand." Measures excluded at the end of the process, she notes, "may surface again in the future."