Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper critiques the use of PMCs for various military functions. The first part defines non-state military entities by using three ethically-relevant characteristics: relationship between user and provider, military function, and operational environment/contingency phase. The second part explicates potential ethical pitfalls: corruption; inconsistency with national security goals; weakened conventional deterrence; jus ad bellum issues, especially the circumvention of legitimate authority; jus in bello problems with discrimination and proportionality; substandard or absent services; poor military-contractor coordination and subsequent operational mishaps; unjust treatment of third-country nationals (TCNs); harms to military morale and retention; erosion of soft and hard power; and lost opportunities for citizenship-building. The third part examines mitigation strategies: oversight, regulation, transparency, coordination, military commitment extensions and/or retention bonuses, and limitations on PMC functions. The fourth section examines the potential costs of these mitigation measures and remaining ethical problems, ultimately concluding that fiscal savings do not offset the ethical cost of even limited PMC use.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: At first glance, private military companies, non-governmental organizations and terrorist organizations belong to totally separate categories. In reality, they differ surprisingly little in terms of functions, organization and even purpose. From the standpoint of the state, they all share the common characteristic of being non-state actors which potentially threaten to overthrow existing states and the inter-state system to which they belong.　By comparing these three groups of non-state actors based on research especially of the former two, this paper considers their impacts on the traditional international security system, and the prospects of whether they are conducive to giving birth to human security in global public sphere.
In consideration of this problem, the presentation will use the analytical framework of global governance, global public sphere, GASC: global armed societal conflict and human security. In this analytical framework, a PMC is presumed as one of armed non-state actors to cope with GASCs in global public sphere under human security as global public security　by global governance.

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Government functions are increasingly privatized by outsourcing to private actors. What raises substantial concern is that privatization also took over the realm of traditional core state functions, security and warfare. Whereas in the past Private Military Corporations (PMCs) were merely endowed with logistic support, they are becoming involved in combat support and direct combat operations. This phenomenon is referred to as “privatized warfare”, a challenge to legal regimes at both international and national level. It deems that no regulatory scheme is equipped to address efficiently this new situation where PMCs are at the edge of traditional military contractors and a new case of mercenary that is shielded behind a veil of corporate identity. Behind that backdrop observers talk about a legal vacuum in which PMCs can act unconstrained and uncontrolled. This paper examines how international and national regulations align responsibility to the increasingly prominent role of PMCs and compares different regulatory regimes. Precisely, it focuses on: international regulation (e.g. the “International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries” and the “Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights”), regulation by the host as well as regulation by the home state of PMCs, and finally the extraterritorial regulation and adjudication by a third state under universal jurisdiction statutes such as the prominent Alien Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 (ACTA). The paper x-rays extraterritorial adjudication arguing that, at present, this system has the greatest potentials to control PMCs by holding them liable in domestic courts. Certainly, this does not preclude international law aspects from the analysis; rather, international law provides the backdrop against which these developments at a national level need to be seen. The paper shows that to date domestic adjudication provides the forum for enforcing and adjudicating PMC liability; further, it argues that the domestic regulatory system bears the potential to give pivotal impetus to the development of a coherent international and transnational regulatory system. Pursuing a set of multiple analytical aims, the paper develops as following: (1) It assesses the existing legal mechanisms at international and national level showing the legal vacuum in which PMCs operate today. It analyzes international law, regulation by the host and home states, as well as extraterritorial adjudication in domestic, U.S. and European, courts. Particular emphasis is put on U.S. jurisdiction under the ATCA and the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (18 U.S.C. 1961 et seq.) analyzing the prominent cases brought against PMCs, namely the cases against Rio Tinto and Dyn Corp with respect to their implication for a future regulatory system. (2) The paper compares two systems of extraterritorial jurisdiction: the system of civil liability under U.S. statutes and the system of criminal liability under selected European jurisdictions (Spain, Belgium, France, and Germany) outlining discrepancies and evaluating respective efficiencies. (3) Finally, the paper elaborates on the impact that the regulatory scheme of extraterritorial jurisdiction might have on the development of a coherent international and transnational regulatory regime for PMCs activities.