A Framework for Regulation - Private Security Monitor

4 PRIVATE MILITARY AND SECURITY COMPANIESINDUSTRY EFFORTSSome PMSCs have long recognized the importanceof guidance on what standards they are expected toabide by and how. They have, consequently,developed an array of internal managementsystems, ethics programs, and controls on the use offorce—both individually, and in cooperation, forexample, through the British Association of PrivateSecurity Companies (BAPSC), International PeaceOperations Association (IPOA), and PrivateSecurity Company Association of Iraq (PSCAI). 4Yet these efforts have gained only limited tractionand done little to ensure effective remedying ofhuman rights violations by industry actors. Theyare heavily criticized by civil society groups forfailing to provide effective and transparent enforcementarrangements. Indeed, the gravity of someallegations about PMSC conduct may make stateinvolvement necessary, if not inevitable—throughrecourse to criminal courts guaranteeing a right tofair trial and due process.In Beyond Market Forces, IPI presents the resultsof a nonscientific examination of more than fortyPMSCs, 5 which found that many PMSCs profess tosupport external ethical standards in their publicitymaterials and on their websites. Some also have inplace implementation frameworks for otherinternal standards, which are supervised and/ormanaged at the senior management level. Thesemay even include strict hiring and vetting policies,and guidelines on contracts requiring the provisionof armed security services, as well as on howpersonnel may use, and must report the use of,force.However, the actual level of commitment to anyexternal standard (such as human rights or IHLstandards) is almost always highly ambiguous.PMSCs’ internal standards and enforcementarrangements also betray a number of weaknesses.For example, they rarely cover subcontractors. Andeven more importantly, no PMSC examined has aneffective and transparent grievance mechanism thatcould be accessed by third parties which wouldmeet the benchmarks identified by the UN SpecialRepresentative on Business and Human Rights. 6And none has provided transparent arrangementsfor referring allegations of serious human rights orIHL violations by their personnel to relevant stateauthorities.Similar concerns arise in relation to PMSCindustry associations. Of the two largest, at present,the BAPSC provides only broad standards in theform of a charter, though it is currently workingwith its membership to develop more-detailedoperational guidance, in the form of a privateBAPSC standard. And BAPSC currently offers noformal grievance mechanism for dealing withcomplaints about its members’ conduct. IPOA doeshave a formal enforcement mechanism, but it lackstransparency and appears highly partial, given thatit leaves the enforcement of the IPOA Code ofConduct to the unfettered discretion of itsmembership. Nor does it give any formal role tostates or civil society in enforcing standards.The global security industry cannot effectivelyimplement and enforce human rights and IHLstandards on its own: industry-only efforts will lackcredibility in the eyes of the broader public,especially if they do not lead to credible andimpartial enforcement action against PMSCpersonnel alleged to be involved in seriousviolations of human rights and IHL. But theinternal standards arrangements developed bysome PMSCs and industry associations couldprovide a starting point for supplementing stateregulation and preventing violations of humanrights and IHL being committed in the first place.They may, therefore, need to be connected to orfolded into a global framework if it is to add valuefor industry stakeholders.INTERGOVERNMENTAL EFFORTSIntergovernmental efforts to regulate mercenaries,for example through the United Nations, have beenrife with political tensions resulting from the role ofmercenarism in colonial history. This legacy oftension has prevented formal intergovernmentalmechanisms from dealing effectively with thecomplex issue of regulation of the GSI.The efforts of the UN Human Rights Council’s4 A “Pan African Security Association” was also formed in 2008. However it remains in its early stages and has not been specifically addressed in this report or thelarger study.5 See the book-length study, James Cockayne, Emily Speers Mears, Iveta Cherneva, Alison Gurin, Shiela Oviedo, and Dylan Yaeger, Beyond Market Forces: Regulatingthe Global Security Industry (New York: IPI, forthcoming 2009) for further details.6 See John Ruggie, Protect, Respect, and Remedy: a Framework for Business and Human Rights, UN Doc. A/HRC/8/5, April 7, 2008, p. 24.