Proefschrift

66 3 CHAPTER 3 oversight mechanisms required for the system to remain under control. Before deployment institutional and political mechanisms, such as fora, clear definitions of the roles of accountor and accountee, should be put in place to exert ex ante supervision (block 1). After deployment an ex post review process ensures that the fora have the power to demand an account and sanction if the account is not satisfactory (block 3). As far as the literature study found, there is no process to oversee the system during deployment (block 2). The oversight of the system in the governance layer is conducted before and after deployment by the ex-ante supervision and ex-post review processes, but an oversight mechanism during deployment seems to be lacking. Both the horizontal layers and vertical columns are interconnected and depend on each other for information. For example, without appropriate input to a system in the technology layer (block 7), there is no feedback loop (block 8) and output (block 9). The output of the technology layer (block 9) is in turn needed to be able to account for as ex post control mechanism (block 6) in the socio-technical layer. This accountability mechanism of block 6 feeds into the ex post review process (block 3) of the governance layer. The components clearly also have causal interconnections. Most notably, the presence (or lack thereof) of adequate ex-ante governance mechanisms (block 1) would affect all the other components, all the way to the technical output of the system (block 9). Also, any gap in these connections will cause problems at the lower levels. In Figure 7 a clear gap is visible in the governance layer of the middle column. Based on our literature study a mechanism in block 2 appears to be missing indicating a gap in the governance layer. As an oversight process seems to be lacking, there is no sufficient mechanism for an institution to govern or supervise the ongoing control (block 5) of a system in the socio-technical layer. The lack of an oversight mechanism in block 2 may lead to deficiencies in the ongoing control mechanism in block 5. In turn this influences the ex post control or accountability mechanism in block 6 as there is no instrument, mechanism or process for an institution in the accountability process to confirm if the conduct during the deployment of the weapon, for which should be accounted for in a forum, actually occurred as there is no monitoring process of an independent institution during deployment. This in turn could lead to deficiencies in the ex post review process (block 3) of the governance layer and could impede both the active responsibility during deployment as the backward-looking responsibility after deployment. Validation When drafting the Comprehensive Human Oversight Framework, we actively sought feedback on the design from academic, military and industry experts during presentations and group discussions. During the empirical investigation phase of this research the aim of the interviews we conducted was to discuss the Comprehensive Human Oversight

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