Proposal

APrIGF 2026 Session Proposal Submission Form
Part 1 - Lead Organizer
Contact Person
Ms. Paula Claire Cuasay
Email
Organization / Affiliation (Please state "Individual" if appropriate) *
Chatham House, Common Futures Conversations
Designation
Member
Gender
Female
Economy of Residence
Philippines
Stakeholder Group
Civil Society
List Your Organizing Partners (if any)
N/A
Part 2 - Session Proposal
Session Title
AI in the Kill Chain: Accountability, Human Control, and the Case for a Binding Regime in Asia Pacific
Thematic Track of Your Session

  • Option

    • Primary: AI Governance for Good
    • Secondary: Digital Resilience and Building of Trust
Session Format
Lightning Talk (20 minutes)
Where do you plan to organize your session?
Online only (with onsite facilitator who will help with questions or comments from the floor)
Specific Issues for Discussion
Most people in this room work on AI governance. Most have read the EU AI Act, followed the UN processes, debated platform accountability. But there is one part of the AI governance conversation that almost never makes it into regional internet governance spaces, and it is arguably the most urgent: AI is already making life-and-death decisions in active conflict zones, and there is no binding international law governing any of it.

This is not a future risk. In 2024, the Israeli military deployed an AI system called "Lavender" that generated targeting lists of 37,000 individuals. Officers reported spending an average of twenty seconds reviewing each recommendation before authorizing a strike. Ukraine deploys approximately 9,000 AI-guided drones daily. The EU AI Act, the world's most comprehensive AI law, explicitly exempts military applications. The UN's expert group on autonomous weapons has been deadlocked since 2017. The kill chain has been accelerated past the point where meaningful human oversight exists, and no binding instrument governs it.

For young people and civil society in Asia Pacific, this is not someone else's problem. The region sits at the center of active geopolitical competition; the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait for example, where AI-enabled military systems are already deployed. Most APAC states have weak domestic AI regulatory frameworks. And the international negotiations that will determine the rules are happening without meaningful APAC youth or civil society representation.

This Lightning Talk, drawing on the speaker's forthcoming Vanguard Think Tank journal publication and her experience managing the AI for Asia Fellowship across Southeast Asia, gives attendees a clear, accessible introduction to the governance gap, what it is, why it matters for this region specifically, and what young people and civil society can do about it before the critical November 2026 CCW Conference deadline.
Describe the Relevance of Your Session to APrIGF
APrIGF 2026 asks how we safeguard a resilient internet in times of crisis. This session makes the case that the most acute crisis is already underway, and that the internet governance community has largely left it unaddressed. Military AI operates in a regulatory void that existing frameworks, including the EU AI Act, explicitly exempt. For Asia Pacific, this is not new: the region is both a theater of AI-enabled military competition and a community largely excluded from the negotiations shaping the rules.

The session advances the "AI Governance for Good" sub-theme by bringing an underrepresented governance crisis, autonomous weapons accountability, into a regional youth and civil society forum where it rarely appears. It advances "Digital Resilience and Building of Trust" by showing how autonomous systems erode the accountability structures that public trust in technology depends on. It is deliberately designed to be accessible to first-time participants and young people with no prior background in arms control or military AI, because those are precisely the voices that need to enter this conversation before the November CCW 2026 deadline passes.

Expected outcomes: attendees leave with a clear understanding of the governance gap, a concrete grasp of what a binding regime must include, and specific actions they can take as youth and civil society advocates in the lead-up to the CCW Conference of States Parties.
Methodology / Agenda (Please add rows by clicking "+" on the right)
Time frame (e.g. 5 minutes, 20 minutes, should add up to the time limit of your selected session format) Description
2 minutes Introduction and scene setting by facilitator/moderator, framing the session as an accessible entry point for attendees unfamiliar with autonomous weapons governance
8 minutes Speaker presentation in three segments: (1) What is already happening; Lavender, Ukraine drones, the EU AI Act exemption explained without jargon; (2) Why this is an Asia Pacific problem; regional exposure, regulatory absence, exclusion from negotiations; (3) What needs to happen, what a binding regime looks like and what the November 2026 CCW deadline means for APAC civil society and youth
7 minutes Audience interaction: facilitator opens the floor with one anchor question: "If an AI system makes a mistake that costs lives in your country, who is responsible?" Responses collected via open floor and Slido for remote participants; facilitator selects responses across stakeholder groups and geographies
3 minutes Speaker synthesizes audience responses and closes with three concrete actions attendees can take to bring APAC youth voices into the CCW process before November 2026
Moderators & Speakers Info (Please complete where possible) - (Required)

  • Moderator (Primary)

    • Name: Paula Claire Cuasay
    • Organization: Chatham House, Common Futures Conversations
    • Designation: Member
    • Gender: Female
    • Economy / Country of Residence: Philippines
    • Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
    • Expected Presence: Online
    • Status of Confirmation: Confirmed
    • Link of Bio (URL only): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vgiy-TowziwVaaZUOpGLF4IdM8uO6V-SMBRQTAy7WVU/edit?usp=sharing

  • Moderator (Facilitator)

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  • Speaker 1

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  • Speaker 2

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  • Speaker 3

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  • Speaker 4

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  • Speaker 5

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Please explain the rationale for choosing each of the above contributors to the session.
As sole speaker and organizer, Paula Claire Cuasay is selected for her intersection of three competencies this session requires: published research on AI governance in the Global South, practitioner experience in regional AI capacity-building, and grounding in military structures that autonomous weapons governance must govern. Her Chatham House publication on AI governance asymmetry and forthcoming Vanguard Think Tank research on autonomous systems form the intellectual basis of this talk. Her work managing the AI for Asia Fellowship gives firsthand visibility into where governance frameworks fail Southeast Asia. Her Naval ROTC training under the Philippine Navy means she understands command structures and the human-control question not abstractly but institutionally, rare for a youth civil society speaker. She speaks to a youth audience because she is one, while bringing research and practitioner depth that makes the session credible to policymakers and experts in the room.
If you need assistance to find a suitable speaker to contribute to your session, or an onsite facilitator for your online-only session, please specify your request with details of what you are looking for.
As an online speaker, I am requesting an onsite facilitator to manage audience participation and relay questions from the floor during my remote presentation. I am looking for a facilitator with basic familiarity with internet governance or AI policy topics who can manage the Slido tool for remote participant engagement and ensure smooth interaction between the online speaker and in-person audience.
Has AI been used to develop this proposal?
No
Please declare if you have any potential conflict of interest with the Program Committee 2026.
No
Are you or other session contributors planning to apply for the APrIGF Fellowship Program 2026?
No
Upon evaluation by the Program Committee, your session proposal may only be selected under the condition that you will accept the suggestion of merging with another proposal with similar topics. Please state your preference below:
No, I would not accept the suggestion of a merger.
Number of Attendees (Please fill in numbers)
    Gender Balance in Moderators/Speakers (Please fill in numbers)
      Consent
      I agree that my data can be submitted to forms.for.asia and processed by APrIGF organizers for the program selection of APrIGF 2026.