The Role of Human Rights in the Regulation of Private Military and Security Companies General Report Universal and Regional Systems: Latin America, Africa and Asia

Abstract

Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) usually provide specialized expertise or services of a military or police nature, particularly high-tech intelligence, military training and support as well as surveillance and protection to strategic installations, high-ranking officials and economic plants of special importance. They are either hired by governments to supplement regular military forces or employed by private corporations and firms. PMSCs’ activity can take place both in peacetime (usually providing police and security services) and in time of war, frequently involving recourse to armed force through the performance of typical conflict operations. It is thus evident how PMSCs operations might affect the enjoyment of most human rights, the effectiveness of which is particularly jeopardized in the course of armed conflicts or other situations of emergency, which represent the typical contexts in which PMSCs operate. All human rights that are most in danger of being affected by PMSCs are contemplated and protected by the relevant international law instruments. This general report provides an overview of these instruments and tries to ascertain how relative obligations and remedial processes can have an impact on the regulation of PMSCs and on their accountability for human rights breaches. It examines universal instruments and the regional instruments that are in force in Latin America, Africa and Asia, as well as the practice of the monitoring bodies established by such instruments, with special attention on states’ positive obligations to make all reasonable efforts to ensure that private actors, including PMSCs, do not cause human rights violations.