ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the potential methods by which the diffusion of increasingly autonomous military technology could be regulated while still empowering states in this region. It demonstrates that the international community should turn its focus towards normative responses and consensus-building in order to create a genuine multilateral basis for future regulation. Supported by neo-liberal institutionalist theory, the potential source for norm generation would be a multi-national institution–led approach that aims to integrate controls under international humanitarian law. This approach recognises the increasingly interlinked nature of the global community from an economic and security standpoint. This chapter concludes by proposing the case for association of South-East Asian nations member states to independently pursue a ‘soft’ normative framework that builds on the stalled certain conventional weapons process to develop consensus-based regulatory measures that are derived from a functional assessment of autonomy.
