Global Policy Forum

States Clarify Rules for Security Contractors

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Seventeen countries including Afghanistan, China, Iraq, the UK and the US signed the Montreux document that outlines international humanitarian and human rights law, binding private military companies and the countries that hire them. Governments that use security contractors abroad wanted to clarify the rules for private military companies, especially after the Blackwater scandal where US security contractors killed 17 Iraqi civilians.

By Jonathan Lynn

The Star
September 17, 2008

Seventeen countries have agreed on rules to ensure that private military companies operating in war zones do not break international humanitarian law or abuse human rights, a senior Swiss diplomat said on Wednesday. The document brings together current laws and obligations to dispel the notion that private military and security companies operate in a legal void, said Paul Seger, head of international law at the Swiss foreign ministry. "The main advantage of this document is to assemble the essential legal norms that do exist and put them in one document," Seger told Reuters in an interview after government experts approved the paper, the result of an initiative launched in late 2005 by the Swiss government and the Red Cross.

Participants include states employing private military firms or where they are based, such as the United States and Britain, and where they operate, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. It emphasises that even if states contract out military and security services they retain their obligations under international law, and must prevent violations, Seger said. And it confirms private military firms have obligations. Besides compiling existing law to reaffirm and clarify the obligations of states, the document also catalogues 73 good practices, defining criteria for vetting companies and monitoring and supervising them, Seger said. Security companies and non-governmental organisations participated in the meetings leading up to the document. "The 'good' members of this sector would really like to see this document which defines what their obligations are," Seger said.

SECURITY FUNCTIONS

Governments have increasingly outsourced security functions such as guarding embassies and providing escorts to private companies, which are also employed by media and aid organisations and businesses operating in insecure areas. The United States is one of the biggest users of security contractors, but it does not employ private military firms, U.S. State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger said. In Iraq, the State Department has 1,300 security contractors protecting diplomats and aid workers. And the U.S. Defense Department has about 7,000 contractors protecting civilian staff, he told a news conference. Bellinger said the use of these contractors had led governments to want to codify rules for them. And Washington was extending the extra-territorial reach of U.S. law. "We believe that individuals who commit offences need to be held accountable. To the extent that our laws are not broad enough to cover their activities we support expansion of our laws," he said.

One of the best known contractors is Blackwater Worldwide, which guards U.S. government personnel in Iraq and elsewhere. It faced heavy criticism and an FBI investigation over the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in a crowded Baghdad square a year ago. Bellinger said the individuals concerned were now in the United States and had not been subject to Iraqi jurisdiction. So any prosecution would take place under U.S. law.

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