The September 2026 final report of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems progressively weakened accountability obligations for autonomous weapons across successive drafts, Utrecht University Assistant Professor Jessica Dorsey wrote on 9 October 2026 in Opinio Juris.

Dorsey, who also serves as Managing Editor of Opinio Juris, compared the GGE's July 2024 baseline text with Rolling Texts from November 2024, May 2025, December 2025, and June 2026, alongside the September 2026 final report. She identified "two related shifts": responsibility and accountability were separated and narrowed, and the language giving them practical effect became less prescriptive.

How did the general statement change?

The December 2025 Rolling Text stated: "States, parties to armed conflict and individuals remain at all times responsible and accountable for their decisions with regard to LAWS since responsibility and accountability cannot be transferred to machines."

By June 2026, accountability had dropped out: "States, parties to armed conflict and individuals remain at all times responsible under applicable international law for their decisions with regard to LAWS since responsibility cannot be transferred to machines."

Paragraph 40 of the final report retains only responsibility: "States, parties to armed conflict and individuals remain at all times responsible under applicable international law for their decisions with regard to LAWS."

Dorsey wrote that "responsibility is one mechanism through which accountability can operate." Unraveling the earlier conflation was "a significant improvement," she added, but "that conceptual clarification was not matched by a strengthening of the text's substantive provisions."

What happened to individual accountability?

Paragraph 41 of the final report requires States to "take measures to ensure individual accountability" for LAWS use, "in accordance with their obligations under IHL, including through the operation of such systems within a responsible chain of human command and control, since accountability cannot be transferred to machines."

Earlier texts obliged States to "ensure individual accountability for the means or methods of warfare involving the use of LAWS." The shift from "must ensure" to "must take measures to ensure," Dorsey argued, gives States "more interpretive space for determining which measures might be deemed sufficient." Deletion of "means or methods of warfare" weakened ties to broader IHL compliance regimes, including weapons reviews under Additional Protocol I.

How did the duty to suppress violations weaken?

Earlier texts tracked Article 14 of Amended Protocol II of the CCW, ratified by 107 of the 128 High Contracting Parties. That article requires States to "take all appropriate steps, including legislative and other measures, to prevent and suppress violations of this Protocol by persons or on territory under its jurisdiction or control."

Paragraph 43 of the final report reads: "States must take measures necessary to prevent and suppress violations of their obligations under international law applicable in armed conflict, relating to the use of LAWS under their jurisdiction."

The change replaces "all appropriate steps" with "measures necessary" and narrows scope from violations "of international law, including IHL" to a State's own "obligations under international law applicable in armed conflict." The phrase "applicable in armed conflict," Dorsey wrote, "could be read as a limitation on the duty" once conflict starts, leaving earlier lifecycle stages less clearly covered.

What changed on internal incident mechanisms?

The dilution is sharpest here. December 2025 and June 2026 texts required States to "ensure effective internal mechanisms for the investigation, reporting and appropriate action in response to incidents" that may involve IHL violations.

Paragraph 44 of the final report states: "States are encouraged to ensure that effective internal mechanisms for addressing incidents involving their use of LAWS, that may involve violations of applicable IHL are established."

Granular duties of investigation, reporting, and appropriate action collapsed into the open-ended "addressing incidents." The verb moved from "must ensure" to "are encouraged to ensure," and the passive construction leaves "open who is expected to establish them and what they must do."

What pattern runs through the text?

Across the accountability architecture, modal verbs now follow a weakening trajectory:

• Individual accountability: "must ensure" → "must take measures to ensure"
• Practical measures: "should provide" → "should promote...may do so through"
• Internal mechanisms: "must ensure" → "are encouraged to ensure"

Dorsey called this "hard to reconcile with the GGE's mandate to strengthen the CCW in addressing LAWS."

Where does this go from here?

States will weigh the report ahead of the CCW's Seventh Review Conference. Dorsey framed the document as "a foundation for those discussions, not the endpoint" and cautioned against further dilution.

"Compromise should not become a substitute for clarity about what States are actually committing themselves to do," she wrote. "Accountability is not something that should simply be encouraged; it is something States must ensure becomes a reality as these systems continue to be developed, acquired and used on battlefields around the world."

For practitioners advising defense ministries, weapons-review counsel, and humanitarian-compliance officers, the final report offers less prescriptive guidance than earlier drafts on how human-responsibility principles translate into operational accountability for LAWS use.