{"id":1771,"date":"2008-01-01T09:01:20","date_gmt":"2008-01-01T13:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/site\/?p=1771"},"modified":"2010-11-19T08:45:40","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T12:45:40","slug":"issue_49-1_gatson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/2008\/01\/issue_49-1_gatson\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercenarism 2.0? The Rise of the Modern Private Security Industry and Its Implications for International Humanitarian Law Enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Abstract<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>In  response to reports of frequent criminal misconduct, aggressive  behavior, and human rights abuses committed with impunity by private  contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, some have argued that private  military and security companies (\u201cPMSCs\u201d) are no more than modern  mercenaries, and that they should therefore be banned under the standing  international prohibition on mercenarism. However, the existing  instruments prohibiting mercenarism would be difficult to apply to most  PMSCs, making it easy for states that want to continue to use these  companies to evade such a ban. In contrast, given market forces pushing  PMSCs to be more compliant and emerging state practices that favor  regulation, coordinated international regulation of PMSCs might feasibly  be enforced. This article proposes that many of the issues with private  military and security companies could be addressed by creating an  international humanitarian law (\u201cIHL\u201d) principle that recognizes state  use of PMSCs as a means of warfare. The availability of advanced,  independent security and military capabilities-for-hire enables states  or nonstate actors to get around political or resource constraints that  otherwise might limit the use of force, and may undermine IHL  enforcement. These threats might be addressed if IHL established a  stronger state responsibility link between states and the PMSCs they  hire. International humanitarian law should provide that states who  outsource government security or military functions in support of any  combat or humanitarian operations that would otherwise trigger IHL must  establish internal oversight, accountability, and liability mechanisms  to ensure that these actors comply with international and domestic legal  norms and regulations.<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"_mcePaste\" style=\"position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 148px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow: hidden;\"><em>This article proposes that many of the issues with private  military  and security companies could be addressed by creating an  international  humanitarian law (\u201cIHL\u201d) principle that recognizes state  use of PMSCs  as a means of warfare.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article proposes that many of the issues with private military and security companies could be addressed by creating an international humanitarian law (\u201cIHL\u201d) principle that recognizes state use of PMSCs as a means of warfare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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