Private Military Contractors and International Law: An Introduction

A recent survey of young Europeans ’ opinions of national institutions has revealed, quite surprisingly, that armed forces enjoy the highest level of trust and prestige in a number of major European countries, well above parliaments, the judiciary, the church, political parties and business enterprises. 1 The profound motivations underlying this assessment remain unknown – one can only conjecture that they are related to the increasing sense of insecurity among young generations and perhaps with the politics of fear – fear of terrorism, of immigrants, environmental disasters, of fi nancial doom, and of the unknown – that have become widespread at the beginning of the 21st century. What is clear, however, is that in the perception of young generations, the armed forces still embody the core function of the state as guarantor of the security of citizens within the national territory. In contrast with this opinion, the trend in recent years has been progressively to privatize important sectors of governmental functions through the outsourcing of security and military services to private actors. Private military and security companies or ‘ contractors ’ thus replace soldiers and members of the armed forces in a variety of situations that include armed confl ict, prolonged military occupation, peacekeeping, and territorial administration in post-confl ict institutional building and intelligence gathering. This phenomenon, of course, has not led to the total privatization of armed forces. It remains rather limited in scope as compared to the operations of national militaries around the globe. Nevertheless, it has intensifi ed with the wars that have inaugurated the 21st century – Afghanistan and Iraq, led by the United States in particular – and it is being further fed by the increased activism of the European Union in international administration of critical territorial situations and peacekeeping operations, from