Bonnie Docherty

When the movement began in 1992, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was considered quixotic, its proponents unrealistically idealistic, its efforts doomed to fail. Twenty-five years and one Nobel Peace Prize later, more than 180 countries have signed its 1997 treaty, agreeing not only to avoid using the weapons but to help remove them from areas where they have been abandoned and remain a danger to life, limbs, and livelihoods...“Everybody said it was impossible to do,” said Goose, looking back at the long road to the 1997 landmine treaty. “After we finally did it, people said, ‘Oh, that wasn’t that hard. It was a one-off. Circumstances allowed that to happen.’” They also, he reported, said its success could not be replicated. Monday’s discussion was designed to prove that false. Indeed, this first public event of Humanitarian Disarmament: The Way Ahead (moderated by Bonnie Docherty, associate director of Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection at Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic) started off by outlining the similarities — and the successes — of other recent campaigns.

Artificial intelligence is beginning to transform society, from babysitting children to self-driving cars. But, many scientists, including Professor Stephen Hawking, argue it may only be a matter of time before they gain consciousness and destroy mankind like something out of science fiction... But, a report by Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic has called for humans to remain in control of weapons at a time of rapid advancement. Senior arms division researcher at Human Rights Watch, Bonnie Docherty, said: "Machines have long served as instruments of war, but historically humans have directed how they are used."

Forget about today's modest incremental advances in artificial intelligence, such as the increasing abilities of cars to drive themselves. Waiting in the wings might be a groundbreaking development: a machine that is aware of itself and its surroundings, and that could take in and process massive amounts of data in real time...'Machines have long served as instruments of war, but historically humans have directed how they are used,' said Bonnie Docherty, senior arms division researcher at Human Rights Watch, in a statement. 'Now there is a real threat that humans would relinquish their control and delegate life-and-death decisions to machines.'

Countries should respond to reports of new use of incendiary weapons in Syria by working to strengthen the international law governing these exceptionally cruel weapons, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today...It urges countries at a UN disarmament meeting, held in Geneva from November 22 to 24, 2017, to initiate a review of Protocol III of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). This protocol, which regulates incendiary weapons, has failed to prevent their ongoing use, endangering civilians. “Countries should react to the threat posed by incendiary weapons by closing the loopholes in outdated international law,” said Bonnie Docherty, senior arms researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Stronger law would mean stronger protections for civilians.”...“Existing law on incendiary weapons is a legacy of the US war in Vietnam and a Cold War compromise,” said Docherty, who is also the associate director of armed conflict and civilian protection at Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, which co-published the report. “But the political and military landscape has changed, and it is time for the law to reflect current problems.”

...We may have helped create the AI monster here in the Hub, but it turns out we’re also the ones fighting to keep it on a leash, with a Justice League of passionate geeks working furiously to ensure the technology is used for the public good...Now [Bonnie] Docherty has turned her attention to another class of weapons that could endanger civilians—fully autonomous ones, powered by AI. She and a host of ethicists, advocates, and legal scholars worry about the possibility of a future in which wars involve robots that might have trouble discriminating between ordinary people and combatants—or be vulnerable to misuse by rogue regimes. “Fully autonomous weapons would face major obstacles in complying with existing international law,” Docherty explains, “and would cross a moral red line by making life-and-death decisions on the battlefield.”...[Chris] Bavitz, the managing director of Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, and his colleagues are assembling what they hope will be the definitive database of judicial risk-assessment products. “We are trying to create a one-stop-shopping resource,” Bavitz explains from his immaculate office overlooking Massachusetts Avenue. “Here are the products, here is what they purport to do, here are jurisdictions that use them, and here is the extent to which they make algorithms available for review.”

When a Norwegian committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) for its work behind a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, 3,500 miles away six people at Harvard cheered loudly. They had reason to celebrate. Bonnie Docherty, associate director of armed conflict and civilian protection, and clinical instructor Anna Crowe, who teach at the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School (HLS), and four law students had taken part in the treaty negotiations spearheaded by ICAN, a Geneva-based international coalition of organizations from more than 100 countries...“The negotiations were timely and urgent,” said Docherty. “It reminded the world of the need to take tangible steps for nuclear disarmament. The treaty banning nuclear weapons will make a real difference in the world.”

A team at the Law School chipped in on the work of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, providing legal advice as the group negotiated an unprecedented disarmament treaty. The Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic joined ICAN in its work to pass a United Nations treaty in July asking countries to abolish their nuclear weapon programs and supplies...The IHRC group included four Law School students—Molly Doggett, Alice L.M. Osman, Carina M. Bentata Gryting, and Lan Mei—as well as Anna Crowe, an instructor at the clinic and Bonnie Docherty, a lecturer at the Law School. “The treaty is a major step and a major step towards nuclear disarmament. It is not the end itself so we’d love to have nuclear states on board, but we’re not surprised and not concerned that they’re not on board,” Crowe said.

A small group from Harvard Law School was basking in a bit of reflected Nobel Peace Prize glow on Friday. The team of six people helped the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which won the prize, by providing legal advice as the organization participated in negotiations for the first treaty to abolish nuclear weapons, one of the Harvard group’s leaders said. Bonnie Docherty, a lecturer at the school and an associate director of the school’s International Human Rights Clinic, said Friday afternoon that she and her colleague, Anna Crowe, headed a group of four law students in assisting ICAN, a Geneva-based coalition of disarmament activists.

NPR's Scott Simon talks to Bonnie Docherty, senior arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, about the group's call for a pre-emptive ban on fully autonomous weapons.

There's a new kind of killer drone. Called TIKAD, it isn't like any lethal drones you're seen before. Because unlike the effective-yet-cumbersome MQ-9 Reapers, these multicopters can carry a sniper rifle, a grenade launcher, or a machine gun—the inevitable convergence of hobby drones and military weapons...Bonnie Docherty, a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and Senior Researcher in the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch, is concerned that the TIKAD represents a step towards autonomous weapons which choose their own targets without any human understanding of the legal, moral, or social context. The UN is moving toward an agreement to limit such weapons, but at its own pace. "International law is slow," says Docherty. "Technology sometimes outpaces it."

While Friday's meeting between the leaders of the two biggest nuclear powers drew world attention, representatives from 122 other countries did something truly historic that barely registered a blip: They negotiated the first-ever treaty outlawing atomic bombs...Bonnie Docherty, an international human rights lawyer at Harvard Law School who was also in attendance, contended that the ban — even without the participation of nuclear weapons states — could “create a norm” that nuclear weapons are immoral and illegal and “set a positive standard that I think will influence disarmament law.”

Acid water, dust, air pollution, destruction of arable land and intimidation of environmental activists are just some of the concerns raised in two damning reports released this week, one of them a submission to the UN Human Rights Council...The submission coincides with a second equally damning report, also released yesterday, by the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic. This report claims South Africa has "failed to meet its human rights obligations to address the environmental and health effects of gold mining in Johannesburg."...Bonnie Docherty, senior clinical instructor at UNHRC and the report's lead author, said South Africa was failing to fulfil human rights commitments made when apartheid ended. "The government should act immediately to address the on-going threats from gold mining, and it should develop a more complete solution to prevent future harm," Docherty said.

An op-ed by Bonnie Docherty: New technology could lead humans to relinquish control over decisions to use lethal force. As artificial intelligence advances, the possibility that machines could independently select and fire on targets is fast approaching. Fully autonomous weapons, also known as “killer robots,” are quickly moving from the realm of science fiction toward reality.

...It doesn't take much imagination to conjure a future in which a swarm of those robots are used on a battlefield. And if that sounds like science fiction, it's not...Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic added to the urgency of the meeting by issuing a report calling for a complete ban on autonomous killer robots. Bonnie Docherty, who teaches at Harvard Law School and was the lead author of the report, says the technology must be stopped before humanity crosses what she calls a "moral threshold." "[Lethal autonomous robots] have been called the third revolution of warfare after gunpowder and nuclear weapons," she says. "They would completely alter the way wars are fought in ways we probably can't even imagine."

An op-ed by Bonnie Docherty. Dozens of countries are holding a multilateral disarmament conference at the United Nations in Geneva today to discuss a new and disturbing threat to humanity. Military powers from across the world are developing technology that could lead to the creation of fully autonomous weapons—that is, weapons that would select targets and fire without “meaningful human control.” The diplomats in Geneva need to decide how to deal with these “killer robots” in international law before it is too late.