The fact that it is now known that roboticists and engineers will, before long, have the capacity to design and build weapon systems that are autonomous and can ‘think for themselves’ has set the stage for an overwhelming mass of speculation about the status, capability and legitimacy of AWS under the IHL framework. Conscious that there are still many legal questions to be answered and technological challenges to be overcome, the first aim of this thesis was to survey the virtual forest of terms coined in the course of discussion, debate and speculation, organise them, analyse them and establish a clear definition of what an AWS actually is.