A battle is forming over the future of so-called killer robots. Starting Nov 16 in Geneva, states will gather to decide whether they want to negotiate a new protocol on the use of "lethal autonomous weapons systems." The Review Conference of the Convention on Conventional Weapons is held every five years, making it a rare chance to govern the rapidly advancing lethal tech that enables machines to target humans with little accountability, rights groups warn. But there's disagreement on how to proceed. Some countries want an outright global ban; others are opposed, arguing that existing International Humanitarian Law is sufficient. Supporters of a ban say today's IHL fails to hold humans accountable for harms caused by autonomous weapons. A majority of countries want to start negotiations on a binding treaty; the US and Russia have reportedly blocked proposals and watered down language. As the discussions move forward, advocates warn that AI-enhanced autonomous weapons are a reality, not sci-fi—as civilians from Gaza to Ukraine to Iran understand.

A new report from the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories finds that Israel has continued to commit "genocidal acts" in the Gaza Strip since the signing of a ceasefire with Hamas last October, and continues to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity throughout the occupied territories.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio placed full sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Oct. 9 in response to investigations into potential war crimes committed by US and Israel.

The three-year commemoration of the October 7 attacks saw ugly manifestations around the world of the growing atmosphere of polarization and dogmatism on the Israel-Palestine dilemma. There is, alas, the grave potential for everything to get much worse. Benjamin Netanyahu, under siege politically within Israel, is seeking not only a re-occupation of Gaza, but to extend the eliminationist project to the West Bank. In Episode 349 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

The global food supply is under threat from laws that criminalize the sale and exchange of traditional peasant seed varieties, a group of UN experts said Sept. 16. In their latest report to the Human Rights Council, the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas indicated that almost all of the world's food comes from seeds and that traditional systems supply 70 to 90 percent of the seeds sown in many countries.

The foreign ministers of eight Musilm countries—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia—issued a joint condemnation Sept. 6 of remarks by Israeli cabinet ministers announcing plans for the mass displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. (ToI)

The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Aug. 20 sanctioned three organizations and two individuals, accusing UK-based Palestine Action, the Italy-based Autistici Inventati, and the Masar Badil network of ties to "violent far-left extremism."

Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian rights activist, filed a lawsuit July 14 in US federal court in Manhattan alleging a "coordinated" conspiracy between senior Trump administration officials and three private organizations to target him for deportation over his advocacy work. Khalil is a former Columbia University graduate student who became the public face of the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism.