The conference was the culmination of a campaign designed to launch a debate, ignite civic involvement, and develop a position by non-governmental organisa­tions on the planned acquisition and deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles by the Polish Armed Forces. Three panels of speakers discussed the political, legal, ethical and societal aspects of the use of combat drone systems.

The position of the coalition members, including the Central & Eastern European Initiative for International Criminal Law and Human Rights, Amnesty Interna­tional, and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, was also presented at the conference. They cited the recommendations of experts who contributed texts for a report entitled Combat Drone Systems: Problem Analysis and Civil Society Answer  [Systemy dronów bojowych: analiza problemów i odpowiedź społeczeństwa obywatelskiego].

For the report, lawyers from the firm’s New Tech­nologies Practice—Lena Marcinoska, Maciej Zych and Rafał Kuchta—prepared a comprehensive analysis of Polish legal regulations governing the use of combat drones. They discussed in detail potentially applicable provisions of the Polish Constitution, acts governing the Armed Forces, aviation law and criminal law, as well as calls for legal changes. During the legal panel at the conference our lawyers presented the conclusions of the study and participated in the discussion.