The liability of robotic and autonomous systems
By: Assuring Autonomy International Programme
Tags: Robotics, Autonomous Cars, Liability, Legal, Autonomous System

Closing the gap

There have been many initiatives within the EU in recent years to identify such gaps and propose solutions:

By identifying gaps in the legislation we can make sure regulation and legislation can keep up with the latest technologies and protect consumers.

The principal gap identified with the introduction of RAS is that under the current Product Liability Directive the liability of the manufacturer is mainly restricted to defects at the time of production: not suitable for an autonomous system which continues to learn and take decisions post-production.

I will discuss this in more detail in my final post and will propose solutions for the UAE.

B — Common Law

Common law applied in England and Wales, the USA, Australia and other parts of the world is a different system to the Civil Law applied in the UAE. This does not necessarily mean that the position on liability for harms caused by autonomous systems is completely different; to the contrary, there are many similarities.

However, the legal terminologies may differ. For instance, as I pointed out in my first post, “tort” as a term may not have an equivalent under the UAE Civil Code but there are provisions of “acts causing harm”, which is basically the common law tort regime. Common law is applied in the Dubai International Financial Centre and Abu Dhabi Global markets, but I don’t go into detail on these in my posts.

Liability in tort under common law is basically a fault-based system, where a party owes the other a duty of care. In the case of a breach of such duty of care, then the party is liable in tort and needs to compensate the injured person. Tort deals mainly with negligence, and it is a different regime from product (strict) or contractual liability.

Common law also covers “vicarious” liability which is usually found in the employer/employee relationship where the person who suffered harm can sue both the person who caused the damage (an employee of a company for example) and the person who was “vicariously liable” (the company itself/employer). Vicarious liability exists under the UAE Civil Code article 313.b. This relationship can be mirrored to an autonomous vehicle and the party controlling it.

What does this mean for autonomous systems?

The main challenge with common law for RAS is being able to prove liability in a tort claim for product liability cases as the damage may be too remote. Negligence is also difficult to prove. So while consumer protection laws would be more suitable for product liability claims, as generally you do not have to prove fault, as is the case in the EU regime, there is a gap when it comes to autonomous systems with common law too. A number of groups, including AAIP, are working to close such gaps.

As I pointed out in my previous post, for the UAE product liability claims are not very common, especially under consumer protection laws. The common remedy for injured persons is claims in tort. This is one of the main differences between the UAE regime (and generally regimes in the region) opposed to western regimes. However, while the discussion is at very early stages in this region, I still believe that, similarly to EU and common law, there is a liability gap for full autonomous systems and will discuss this in my next post.