In depth
Finding out more
In this issue, we provide you with materials to find out more in-depth information on private military services companies (hereinafter PMSCs) and their employees, known as security contractors. For many people, this is a euphemism for a word with which we are much more familiar: mercenaries. To that end, we offer you three important legal documents on mercenaries and we suggest some examples of relevant academic literature in order to obtain an overview of mercenaries in the twenty-first century. First, however, you can read a brief historical outline of their origin.
Mercenaries are recorded as having existed since ancient Egyptian times, and there are numerous examples of their use throughout history, from the Balearic slingshot warriors who participated in the Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome, to the soldiers of fortune who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan today. In brief terms, the heyday of mercenaries was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and to a lesser extent, the eighteenth century. Examples include the Swiss mercenaries and the German Landsknechts who offered their services to the highest bidder all over Renaissance Europe, the private armies that took centre stage in the conquest of Latin America, the regiments of General Wallenstein in the Thirty Years' War and the armies and navies of the Dutch and British East India companies maintained in India and Indonesia, respectively.
In the nineteenth century, as a result of the triumph of the nation-state as a political model after the French Revolution, standing armies of citizens became established, and replaced armies based on professional soldiers and mercenaries. However, this model proved to be out of date in many Western countries in the late twentieth century, when the majority of the armed forces in our hemisphere began to operate on a professional basis, leading to the recreation of the niche for the reappearance of the soldier for hire, the mercenary, to carry out tasks assigned as auxiliary to those of uniformed soldiers. However, the current role of mercenaries is very different from that of their predecessors in past centuries.
Legal documents
The definition of the mercenary according to the additional Protocol of the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 on the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), June 8, 1977
Article 47 - Mercenaries
1. A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.
2. A mercenary is any person who:
(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.
The definition of a mercenary according to Resolution 44/34 of the United Nations General Assembly is: International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, 4 December 1989
Article I
For the purposes of the present Convention,
1. A mercenary is any person who:
(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party;
(c) Is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict;
(d) Is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict;
(e) Has not been sent by a State which is not a party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.
2. A mercenary is also any person who, in any other situation:
(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad for the purpose of participating in a concerted act of violence aimed at:
(i) Overthrowing a Government or otherwise undermining the constitutional order of a State; or
(ii) Undermining the territorial integrity of a State;
(b) Is motivated to take part therein essentially by the desire for significant private gain and is prompted by the promise or payment of material compensation;
(c) Is neither a national nor a resident of the State against which such an act is directed;
(d) Has not been sent by a State on official duty; and
(e) Is not a member of the armed forces of the State on whose territory the act is undertaken.
The Montreux Document. This document of 2008, promoted by the Government of the Swiss Confederation and the International Committee of the Red Cross, includes a series of standards and best practices to be implemented by the signatories States with regard to hiring private military and security companies operating in situations of armed conflict. There are seventeen signatory countries: Afghanistan, Angola, Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Iraq, China, Poland, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Recommended reading
From the vast amount of literature on the subject, we have seleccted some articles and books, ranging from general works on PMSCs to more specific issues, such as their role as peace-builders, their involvement in civil wars in Africa, the extensive use made of them by the United States Government in Iraq and Afghanistan and the ongoing lack of effective regulation for these "private armies."
Abrahamsen, R., & Williams, M. C. (2007). Introduction: The Privatisation and Globalisation of Security in Africa. International Relations, 21(2), 131-141. The authors of this article discuss the process and the impact of the privatisation of security in Africa, and attempt to distinguish between the classic figure of the mercenary and "security contractors," who provide their services legally, helping to cover security shortcomings in many African states.
Avant, D. (2005). Private security companies. New Political Economy, 10(1), 121-131. In just a few pages, the author gives us the keys to understanding what PMSCs are, why they emerged and the main risks and benefits arising from their use by States.
Barbara, J. (2006). Nation building and the role of the private sector as a political peace-builder. Conflict, Security and Development, 6(4), 581-594. In countries undergoing a process of nation-building like post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, DSSCs can play an important role in peace-building and peacekeeping, as outlined in this article.
Bjork, K., & Jones, R. (2005). Overcoming Dilemmas Created by the 21st Century Mercenaries: conceptualising the use of private security companies in Iraq. Third World Quarterly, 26(4), 777-796. This article stresses the need to conceptualise the work of PMSCs to give them autonomy from the Armed Forces. When the border between the two is poorly defined, as was the case in Iraq during the early years of the US-led occupation, the population's perception worsens and asymmetric conflict intensifies.
Dokubo, C. (2000). "An Army for Rent", Private Military Corporations and Civil Conflicts in Africa, The Case of Sierra Leone. Civil Wars, 3(2), 51-64. This article gives an overview of the activities of mercenaries in the civil war in Sierra Leone (1991-2002), which highlighted the need to regulate PMSCs, especially in a context as conducive to their activities as Africa.
Kinsey, C. (2007). Problematising the Role of Private Security Companies in Small Wars. Small Wars and Insurgencies, 18(4), 584. The author notes three trends in the presence of mercenaries in civil wars: they can act as auxiliaries to the armed forces, shore up the State or replace it in the security sphere. Starting with this assumption, he considers the Afghan and Iraqi cases.
Kinsey, Christopher. Corporate soldiers and international security: the rise of private military companies. London: Routledge, 2007. This book provides a general overview of the dramatic growth of DSSCs in recent years, and especially as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Leander, a. (2010). The Paradoxical Impunity of Private Military Companies: Authority and the Limits to Legal Accountability. Security Dialogue, 41(5), 467-490. The legal regulation of DSSC's activities is still in an embryonic stage, with many loopholes. According to the author, this is due to the exceptional nature of the situations of risk, market imperatives and inconsistencies within the discourse of the state monopoly of violence by the States themselves.
Pereyra, Daniel. Mercenarios guerreros del imperio: los ejércitos privados y el negocio de la guerra (Mercenary warriors of the empire: private armies and the business of war). Barcelona: El Viejo Topo, 2007. This book looks at the history of mercenaries during the conflicts of the twentieth and early twenty-first century, and emphasises their role as a key player in the hugely lucrative business of war.
Schwartz, M. (2010). The Department of Defense's Use of Private Security Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan: Background, Analysis, and Options for Congress. Iraq (pp. 1-24). This report, which was presented to the United States Congress, proposes guidelines to be followed by the Government in the use of DSSCs in Iraq and Afghanistan during the coming years.