The Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy is a US State Department initiative that sets out a set of non-legally-binding norms for how states should develop, deploy, and use AI in the military domain. It was launched in February 2023 at the first Responsible AI in the Military Domain (REAIM) summit in The Hague, and a revised version was released later in 2023.
The declaration is built around a list of measures that endorsing states say they will implement. These include ensuring that military AI use complies with international law, that senior officials oversee high-consequence applications, that systems have explicit and well-defined uses, and that personnel are trained to understand the capabilities and limitations of the systems they use. On the most sensitive question, it states that nuclear-weapons employment decisions should retain human control, and more broadly that military AI should be used “within a responsible human chain of command and control.”
Unlike the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons process in Geneva, which seeks consensus among all states and has moved slowly, the political declaration is a coalition effort that any state can endorse. By late 2024 dozens of countries had signed on, and the United States framed it as a way to build practical norms quickly rather than waiting for a binding treaty.
For a business or general reader, the declaration shows how governments are trying to govern military AI through voluntary commitments and shared best practice rather than hard law. The standards it promotes, such as documented testing, traceability, and human accountability, echo the responsible-AI practices increasingly expected in civilian sectors.