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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 08/05
Private Security Companies: The Case for Regulation
Caroline Holmqvist
January 2005
Preface
The prominent use made of private security services by the United States during its Iraq campaign, and the way in which this use has become linked with concerns about both human rights abuses and business ethics, has uncovered the tip of what is in fact a very large iceberg of a problem. The services provided by private companies in the security sector today cover an enormous range, far outstripping and arguably making redundant the traditional definition of a 'mercenary'. They are drawn upon both by 'weak' states and by some of the world's most powerful governments. It is hard to see how this trend towards the 'privatization of security' can quickly be blocked or reversed, given the increasing preference for interventionist modes of security action, the growing scale of ambition of 'peace-building' efforts, and the lack of both money and men to increase or even maintain the levels of state-owned defence and security forces.
Building on the best research available, Caroline Holmqvist in this Policy Paper addresses the challenges posed by the manifold activities of private security services today from a notably objective and balanced perspective. She gives as much attention to the way such services are used by strong states, whose democratic credentials are not generally in doubt, as to the more commonly recognized problem of weak states where excessive resort to private services both marks and aggravates the fragmentation of authority. While recognizing the short-term appeal, and even the logic, that such solutions may have in individual cases, she rightly draws attention to the problems that lie in wait if either the local, or intervening, authorities delegate the wrong functions to private providers and fail to define and enforce the right standards of performance. Even in cases where there is no abuse of trust by private companies, it is hard to avoid a loss of transparency, of democratic control and of local 'ownership' of security processes in the broader sense.
Having identified where the precise problems and requirements for better regulation of private security activities lie, the final chapter of this Policy Paper discusses a wide range of possible approaches to the challenge. Its recommendations are directed at, and deserve careful attention by, international organizations and multinational companies as well as traditional nation states and their regional groupings. The proposals offered, in particular to the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union, recognize these organizations' will to improve both the quality and quantity of their conflict-related work—ambitions which, in the given conditions, make it hard for them to avoid at least short-term reliance on private sector help themselves but emphasize how important it is for them to show leadership in defining, and abiding by, the appropriate norms.
