Advancing clarity: Analysis of UxS legal questions
In: Oceans (New York). IEEE: New York. ISSN 0197-7385, more
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| Authors | | Top |
- Lesse, M.
- DeCocco, P.
- Fletcher, K.
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| Abstract |
For total mission success, the United States Navy must understand the complete environment in which they operate. This includes the understanding of legal and policy requirements related to environmental, safety, national, and international laws that apply to the unmanned (UxS) and autonomous systems (AS) owned and operated by the US Navy. The laws and policies revolving around these rapidly advancing systems vary both nationally and internationally. While research revealed that many countries and agencies lacked any official definition of these systems, this project used the NATO definition of an Autonomous System. Two hypothetical scenarios were developed to analyze the any existing laws applicable to UxS and AS in the maritime setting. The first scenario is framed around an actual event that occurred in 2016 when a Chinese military vessel extracted a US Navy UxS. The second scenario expands on laws that address the responsibility and legality of systems deemed “expendable”, lost, or otherwise unable to be recovered. The environmental considerations for the US Navy that are presented include environmental considerations to protected areas, and applicable marine policy and federal law. These considerations are important with the rapid increase in development of expendable systems, especially because they are deliberately discarded without any intention of retrieving any parts or the entire system. These aspects of the analysis of the law from a multi-year effort are culminated and presented in this paper. |
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