Contracting Out To Private Military And Security Companies

PDF can be downloaded for free from: http://martenscentre.eu/publications/contracting-out-private-military-and-security-companies The global trend for contracting out the supply of military and security services is growing. Security is being transformed from a service for the public or common good into a privately provided service. This paper argues that the implications of outsourcing security services to private agencies are neither a positive nor negative phenomenon. However, proper regulation of private military and security services is important. The author recommends that states should determine their 'inherently governmental functions' and keep these functions out of the market's reach.

Although subject to little discussion, the UN has increasingly paid private military and security companies (PMSCs) for a range of services in the areas of humanitarian affairs, peacebuilding and development. However, this practice has rarely translated into coherent policies or guidelines that could guide the UN in setting standards or ensuring responsible contracting procedures. This paper explores UN demand for PMSCs and identifies the need for a more proactive, sensitive and deliberate political approach in order to avoid potential pitfalls associated with involving PMSCs in the delivery of UN tasks.

Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) have constituted a perennial feature of the security landscape. Yet, it is their involvement in and conduct during the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have transformed the outsourcing of security services into such a pressing public policy and world-order issue. The PMSCs’ ubiquitous presence in armed conflict situations, as well as in post-conflict reconstruction, their diverse list of clients (governments in the developed and developing world, non-state armed groups, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and international corporations) and, in the context of armed conflict situations, involvement in instances of gross misconduct, have raised serious accountability issues. The prominence of PMSCs in conflict zones has generated critical questions concerning the very concept of security and the role of private force, a rethinking of "essential governmental functions," a rearticulation of the distinction between public/private and global/local in the context of the creation of new forms of "security governance," and a consideration of the relevance, as well as limitations, of existing regulatory frameworks that include domestic and international law (in particular international human rights law and international humanitarian law). This book critically examines the growing role of PMSCs in conflict and post-conflict situations, as part of a broader trend towards the outsourcing of security functions. Particular emphasis is placed on key moral, legal, and political considerations involved in the privatization of such functions, on the impact of outsourcing on security governance, and on the main challenges confronting efforts to hold PMSCs accountable through a combination of formal and informal, domestic as well as international, regulatory mechanisms and processes. It will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, practitioners and advocates for a more transparent and humane security order. This book was published as a special issue of Criminal Justice Ethics.

Faced with a decreasing supply of national troops, dwindling defense budgets, and the ever-rising demand for boots on the ground in global conflicts and humanitarian emergencies, decision makers are left with little choice but to legalize and legitimize the use of private military contractors (PMCs). Outsourcing Security examines the impact that bureaucratic controls and the increasing permissiveness of security environments have had on the U.S. military’s growing use of PMCs during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Bruce E. Stanley examines the relationship between the rise of the private security industry and five potential explanatory variables tied to supply-and-demand theory in six historical cases, including Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the U.S. intervention in Bosnia in 1995, and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Outsourcing Security is the only work that moves beyond a descriptive account of the rise of PMCs to lay out a precise theory explaining the phenomenon and providing a framework for those considering PMCs in future global interaction.

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2012 in the subject Law - Miscellaneous, grade: A, , course: LLM INTERNATIONAL LAW, language: English, abstract: The monopoly of the use of force granted to modern States by its citizens is a relatively new phenomenon. Private armies have been operating in European States till the XIX century. The use of mercenaries has been historically a constant phenomenon till almost the end of the XX century, when their activities were criminalized by the international community. Parallel to that phenomenon during the European colonial expansion over all continents, governments had authorized two other forms of similar violence by non-state actors: the corsairs and the colonial merchant companies.

Private actors are increasingly taking on roles traditionally arrogated to the state. Both in the industrialized North and the developing South, functions essential to external and internal security and to the satisfaction of basic human needs are routinely contracted out to non-state agents. In the area of privatization of security functions, attention by academics and policy makers tends to focus on the activities of private military and security companies, especially in the context of armed conflicts, and their impact on human rights and post-conflict stability and reconstruction. The first edited volume emerging from New York University School of Law's Institute for International Justice project on private military and security companies, From Mercenaries to Market: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies broadened this debate to situate the private military phenomenon in the context of moves towards the regulation of activities through market and non-market mechanisms. Where that first volume looked at the emerging market for use of force, this second volume looks at the transformations in the nature of state authority. Drawing on insights from work on privatization, regulation, and accountability in the emerging field of global administrative law, the book examines private military and security companies through the wider lens of private actors performing public functions. In the past two decades, the responsibilities delegated to such actors - especially but not only in the United States - have grown exponentially. The central question of this volume is whether there should be any limits on government capacity to outsource traditionally "public" functions. Can and should a government put out to private tender the fulfilment of military, intelligence, and prison services? Can and should it transfer control of utilities essential to life, such as the supply of water? This discussion incorporates numerous perspectives on regulatory and governance issues in the private provision of public functions, but focuses primarily on private actors offering services that impact the fundamental rights of the affected population.

A multinational team of scholars and experts address the issue of controlling the use of privatized forces by states. They address the role of contract employees, their acceptance by military personnel, and possible tensions between them.

The use of private security contractors (PSCs) to protect personnel and property in Iraq and Afghanistan has been a subject of debate. While PSCs are viewed as being vital to U.S. efforts in the region, many are concerned about transparency, accountability, and legal issues raised by the use of armed civilians to perform security tasks formerly performed by the mil. Contents of this report: Legal Status and Authorities: (a) Internat. Law: Can Contractors be Combatants?; Are They Mercenaries?; (b) Iraqi Law, and Afghan Law, and Status of U.S. Forces; (c) U.S. Law; ¿Inherently Gov¿t. Functions¿ and Other Restrictions on Gov¿t. Contracts; Prosecution of Contractor Personnel in U.S. Fed. or Mil. Courts; Uniform Code of Mil. Justice.