In 2016 at an informal meeting in Geneva, a mandate was agreed for the establishing of "an open-ended Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) related to emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) in the context of the objectives and purposes of the Convention" to be established . This GGE would examine emerging AWS technologies in the context of the CCW. This decision can be found at page 9 of this document. The group of experts would meet for a period of 10 days in 2017, where they would, following the procedure contained in CCW/CONF.V/2, and submit a report to the 2017 meeting of the high contracting parties to the convention consistent with those in the reccomendations
The discussions in 2019 started with the discussion of a list of 10 guiding principles that the GGE had agreed upon in 2018:
In the first sessions of 2024 the GGE discussed the definition of AWS and their relationship with international humanitarian law. Russia objected to the participaton of observers and refused to conform to the rules of procedure unless restrictions were put on observers
The next CCW GGE will be on the 3rd to 7th march. This will be the third session under the three year mandate of the group made to “further consider and formulate, by consensus,a set of elements of an instrument in the area of lethal autonomous weapons systems.” this is ultimately conducive to the consensus report that the CCW GGE will submit to the 7th review conference in 2026.