Codes of conduct for private military and security companies : the state of self-regulation in the industry

Abstract

What is the state of self-regulatory initiatives in the private military and security industry? Private military and security companies (PMSCs) put forward a complex regulation of their own activities through Codes of Conduct (CoC), including best practices and ethics declarations initiated by firms, which aim to complement existing national and international rules. This chapter classifies these initiatives, identified under the heading of ‘corporate social responsibility’, and sets out to analyse them through a two-step inquiry. First, the research focuses on substantive rules, including the licensing regimes, contracts, the activity of PMSCs, resort to force, risk assessment and issues of liability. Second, the study explores procedural rules of implementation and enforcement as well as their viability. The overall self-regulatory framework is critically assessed from the standpoint of both its internal coherence and external consistency with existing public regulation.