Report by Mr. Filip Deheegher, the City of Ypres, Belgium
On the 11th of November – following a one-year postponement due to COVID-19 – the city of Ypres presented its triennial Peace Prize 2020 to the worldwide campaign “Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.”
The campaign’s members, whose project was chosen by the youth in Ypres from a list of five nominees, took the time to visit all schools in the area and talked to the students about their campaign. They stressed that there is a real need to negotiate an international treaty banning killer robots before they are used, since there was a reference for the first time in a UN report about the deployment of these weapon systems.
Killer robots, or lethal autonomous weapons systems, are robots that would be able to make life or death decisions without human intervention, and are considered the third revolution in weapons technology after gunpowder and nuclear weapons. Through their choice, young people in Ypres have sent a clear signal that the human race should never relinquish control over weapons systems.
Photo: courtesy of the City of Ypres