Normalizing Mercenarism as Business: The Process of Regulating Private Military and Security Companies at the United Nations Level
Normalizing Mercenarism as Business: The Process of Regulating Private Military and Security Companies at the United Nations Level

Summary/Abstract: This article examines efforts to regulate private military and security companies (PMSCs) in different UN fora since 2005, in order to understand the processes that led to a significant dilution of initial regulatory ambitions. The analysis of the proceedings of the three working groups relevant to this process suggests a decreasing level of ambition concerning the creation of a binding international instrument that would ensure the compliance of PMSCs with international human rights standards and international humanitarian law. This article argues that the dilution of strong arguments in favor of binding regulation can be attributed to three types of factors: the shifting of the debate from experts and activists to state representatives; the existence of a North-South cleavage on the issue at the intergovernmental level; and the emergence of competing regulatory fora such as private governance by the industry itself (the International Code of Conduct Association) and the Swiss-led initiative for the creation of a soft law instrument (the Montreux Document). Thus, despite an initial general consensus on the threat that unregulated PMSCs pose to human rights, the structure of the regulation process led to a diluted outcome wherein human rights issues were relegated behind the interests of both hegemonic states and the industry.

• Details
• Contents