---
type: source
title: "Campaign to Stop Killer Robots (CS-KR) — Pre-Treaty ICBL Infrastructure Analog Without the Triggering Event"
author: "Leo (KB synthesis from CS-KR public record, CCW GGE deliberations 2014-2025)"
url: https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/
date: 2026-03-31
domain: grand-strategy
secondary_domains: [ai-alignment, mechanisms]
format: synthesis
status: processed
priority: high
tags: [campaign-stop-killer-robots, cs-kr, laws, autonomous-weapons, lethal-autonomous-weapons-systems, stigmatization, normative-campaign, icbl-analog, triggering-event, ccw-gge, meaningful-human-control, ai-weapons-governance, three-condition-framework, ottawa-treaty-path, legislative-ceiling]
flagged_for_theseus: ["CS-KR's 'meaningful human control' framing overlaps with Theseus's AI alignment domain — does the threshold of 'meaningful human control' connect to alignment concepts like corrigibility or oversight preservation? If yes, the governance framing and the alignment framing may converge on the same technical requirement."]
flagged_for_clay: ["The triggering-event gap (CS-KR has infrastructure but no activation event) is a narrative infrastructure problem. What visual/narrative infrastructure would need to exist for an AI weapons civilian casualty event to generate ICBL-scale normative response? This is the Princess Diana analog question for Clay."]
---

## Content

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots (CS-KR) is the direct structural analog to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) — the NGO coalition that drove the Ottawa Treaty. Assessing its trajectory reveals the current state of AI weapons stigmatization infrastructure and the key missing component.

**CS-KR founding and structure:**
- Founded April 2013 by NGO coalition including Human Rights Watch, Article 36, PAX, Amnesty International
- Now ~270 member organizations across 70+ countries (ICBL peaked at ~1,300 NGOs, but CS-KR has comparable geographic reach)
- Call for action: negotiation of "a new international treaty that would prohibit fully autonomous weapons"
- Normative threshold: "meaningful human control" over lethal targeting decisions

**CCW GGE on LAWS (parallel formal process):**
- Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems
- Established 2014; annual meetings since 2016
- Key milestones:
  - 2019: Adopted 11 Guiding Principles on LAWS (non-binding; acknowledged "meaningful human control" concept)
  - 2021: Endorsed Guiding Principles again; no progress toward binding instrument
  - 2023: Adopted "Recommendations" — first formal recommendations; but still non-binding
  - 2024: CCW Review Conference; 164 states; Austria, Mexico, 50+ states favor binding treaty; US, Russia, China, India, Israel, South Korea favor non-binding guidelines only
  - 11 years of deliberations; zero binding commitments

**Structural parallel to ICBL (1992-1997 phase):**
The ICBL was founded in 1992 and achieved the Ottawa Treaty in 1997 — five years. CS-KR was founded in 2013; it's now 13 years later with no binding treaty. The ICBL needed three components: (1) normative infrastructure (present in CS-KR); (2) triggering event (present for ICBL — post-Cold War conflict civilian casualties; ABSENT for CS-KR); (3) middle-power champion moment (present for ICBL — Axworthy's Ottawa process; ABSENT for CS-KR — Austria has been most active but has not made the procedural break).

**Why the triggering event hasn't occurred:**
- Russia's Shahed drone strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure (2022-2024) are the nearest candidate: unmanned systems striking civilian targets, documented casualties, widely covered
- Why Shahed didn't trigger ICBL-scale response: (a) Shahed drones are semi-autonomous with pre-programmed targeting, not real-time AI decision-making — autonomy is not attributable in the "machine decided to kill" sense; (b) Ukraine conflict has normalized drone warfare rather than stigmatizing it; (c) both sides are using drones — stigmatization requires a clear aggressor
- The triggering event needs: clear AI decision-attribution + civilian mass casualties + non-mutual deployment (one side victimizing the other) + Western media visibility + emotional anchor figure (Princess Diana equivalent)

**The definitional paralysis problem:**
- ICBL didn't need to define "landmine" with precision — the object was physical, concrete, identifiable
- CS-KR must define "fully autonomous weapons" — where is the line between human-directed targeting assistance and fully autonomous lethal decision-making?
- CCW GGE has spent 11 years without agreeing on a working definition
- Major powers' interest: definitional ambiguity preserves their programs. The US LOAC (Law of Armed Conflict) compliance standard for autonomous weapons is deliberately vague — enough "human judgment somewhere in the system" without specifying what judgment at what point
- This is not bureaucratic failure; it's strategic interest actively maintaining ambiguity

**Middle-power champion assessment:**
- Austria: most active; convened Vienna Conference on LAWS (2024); has called for binding instrument
- New Zealand, Ireland, Costa Rica, Mexico: active supporters but without diplomatic leverage
- The Axworthy parallel would require a senior government figure willing to convene outside CCW — invite willing states to finalize a treaty and let major powers self-exclude
- No evidence this political moment has been identified; Austrian diplomacy remains within CCW machinery

---

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** CS-KR's 13-year trajectory reveals the AI weapons stigmatization campaign is in the "normative infrastructure present, triggering event absent" phase — comparable to the ICBL circa 1994-1995 (three years before Ottawa). The campaign is NOT stalled in the sense of losing momentum; it's waiting for the activation component.

**What surprised me:** The CCW GGE's 11-year failure to produce a binding instrument is often framed as evidence that AI weapons governance is impossible. But the ICBL bypassed the Conference on Disarmament — the exact equivalent — to achieve the Ottawa Treaty. The CCW GGE failure may be an ARGUMENT FOR a venue bypass, not evidence of permanent impossibility.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Clear evidence of a middle-power government leader willing to attempt the Axworthy procedural break (convening outside CCW machinery). Austria is the closest, but they're still working within CCW. The Axworthy moment hasn't been identified or attempted.

**KB connections:**
- [[narratives are infrastructure not just communication because they coordinate action at civilizational scale]] — CS-KR IS the narrative infrastructure; the missing component is the triggering event that activates it
- the meaning crisis is a narrative infrastructure failure not a personal psychological problem — the "who decides when AI kills" question is a narrative infrastructure problem at civilizational scale
- Ottawa Treaty analysis (today's first archive) — CS-KR has Component 1 (infrastructure) but lacks Components 2 and 3

**Extraction hints:**
1. STANDALONE CLAIM: Campaign to Stop Killer Robots as ICBL-phase-equivalent — normative infrastructure present; triggering event absent; middle-power champion moment not yet identified. This is a stage-assessment claim, not a pessimistic claim — the infrastructure makes the treaty possible when the event occurs. Grand-strategy domain. Confidence: experimental.
2. ENRICHMENT: Triggering-event architecture claim (Candidate 3 from research-2026-03-31.md) — CS-KR + CCW GGE trajectory is the empirical basis for the three-component sequential architecture (infrastructure → triggering event → champion moment).

**Context:** CS-KR is primarily a policy/advocacy organization; its annual reports document coalition growth and CCW GGE progress. Key academic analysis: Mark Gubrud (IEEE), Kenneth Payne "I, Warbot" (2021). CCW GGE Meeting Reports available at https://www.un.org/disarmament/the-convention-on-certain-conventional-weapons/

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)
PRIMARY CONNECTION: Legislative ceiling claim (Sessions 2026-03-27 through 2026-03-30) + Ottawa Treaty analysis (today's first archive)
WHY ARCHIVED: CS-KR trajectory reveals the AI weapons stigmatization campaign is in the "infrastructure present, triggering event absent" phase. This provides the empirical basis for the triggering-event architecture claim and positions the legislative ceiling as event-dependent, not permanently structural.
EXTRACTION HINT: Extract together with the Ottawa Treaty archive and the three-condition framework revision. The CS-KR trajectory is the empirical grounding for the "infrastructure without activation" stage assessment. Flag to Clay for narrative infrastructure implications.
