Stronger controls over international markets are currently high on the political agenda, in the UK and globally. In the midst of these discussions, we might reflect on the need for greater regulation in the field of security too.
In recent years the decision to invade Iraq, and the security consequences it has engendered, have dominated international policy discussions. Nevertheless, an underexamined development from Iraq and from other conflicts in the 21st century has been the rise of private security companies. Contracted by governments and non-state actors, these companies play increasingly crucial roles in some of the most contentious overseas operations. And while private security has garnered media headlines (not least following the arrest of Mark Thatcher for alleged involvement in African mercenary activities), the significance of this phenomenon has not been fully realised.
Let us look at the use of private security in Iraq. Even conservative estimates put the number of private security contractors in Iraq at around 20,000. In other words, these companies have contributed more personnel than any member of the ‘Coalition’ apart from the US military. This trend is only set to continue. While the American presidential candidates debate their respective responses to the global financial crisis and to the security vacuum arising from Iraq, there is little difference in their positions on the use of private security; Barack Obama’s plans for troop withdrawal still predict a large presence of private security forces following any official return of US troops.
The use of private security by states and governments is arguably not a new phenomenon. Both privateering (private vessels the state authorised to attack enemies) and mercantile companies (chartered by the state to engage in long distance trade and establish colonies) were used to reinforce states’ power in relation to other states in much of the 20th century; Britain’s employment of Gurkhas began in the 19th century and continues today; and the French Foreign Legion, created in the mid-19th century, relies on international volunteer recruits who, since the 1990s, have served in Somalia, Rwanda and Iraq.
But what is new is the rise in the number of private security contractors and the widening range of military operations they are deployed in. Alongside Iraq, for example, in Afghanistan, private companies provide much of the security for President Karzai and his government; in south-east Asia and South America private security companies have fought drug cartels and warlords; and across sub-Saharan Africa, private security has secured access to natural resources for multinational companies.
And this goes beyond the use of private security by western governments. The UN and international NGOs increasingly contract out their security to private companies, a reflection in part of the growing hostility these agencies find when they are active in countries affected by conflict.
Why should this rise of private security give us pause for thought?
First, private security companies have thus far been assured of immunity from local accountability, in that when operating overseas they often do not fall under local jurisdiction (in Iraq, all foreign contractors were given immunity from Iraqi legal processes). And in practice no single UK or US government agency monitors private security companies. A number of well-documented incidents of abuse of power, including the use of contracted interrogators in Abu Ghraib prison and the alleged shooting of Iraqi civilians by American private security company Blackwater, have highlighted the potential danger of such a lack of accountability in conflict and post-conflict contexts.
Second, private security companies and their use by governments and leading international agencies have been largely shrouded in invisibility. Despite some sporadic press reporting, overall the British public remains largely unaware of the scale of the government’s use of private contractors and many British based private security companies have been contracted by the American government and others to take part in overseas operations. Here it seems as though practice is outstripping policy as there are few mechanisms for ensuring transparency or accountability for the actions of these companies within the UK.
The outsourcing of security, on the one hand, meets the needs of governments engaged in overseas deployments but also facing military shortages and lack of public support for sending troops abroad. The extension of notions like the ‘responsibility to protect’ and the rise of peacekeeping and post-conflict deployments arguably increase these strains further, in turn increasing demand for private security forces.
On the other hand, outsourcing security functions with little regulation or oversight can pose significant challenges for democratic governments, particularly those who have sought to demonstrate their commitment to ethical foreign policies. This is only made worse by the fact that private security is increasingly deployed in contexts deemed politically sensitive or which are militarily risky; arguably it is in these contexts that oversight and control are even more crucial.
It took a global financial crisis to start a debate about the need for stronger controls over international markets; we should hope that it does not take a global security crisis to take action, both in the UK and internationally, to show leadership and push for greater controls of private actors. A global framework, or as others have argued international registration of private security companies and perhaps a permit scheme to regulate their operations in conflict countries, might be a good starting point (see Speckmann 2008).