Private Security, Public Order: Governance & Limits
Background Note
Private actors are increasingly taking on roles traditionally arrogated to the state. In the industrialized north and the developing south, functions essential to external and internal security and to the satisfaction of basic human needs are routinely contracted out to non-state agents. In the area of privatization of security functions, attention by academics and policy makers tends to focus on the activities of private military and security companies (PMSCs), especially in the context of armed conflicts, and their impact on human rights and post-conflict stability and reconstruction. Using insights from work on privatization, regulation, and accountability in the emerging field of global administrative law, this conference situates PMSCs in the larger context of private actors performing public functions with the goal of identifying elements of a governance regime that could be used by providers, consumers, regulators, and academic commentators in developing a regulatory framework for PMSCs.
The conference is spread over five sessions. The first session examines the PMSC phenomenon by placing it within the broader contexts of globalization and state outsourcing of public functions. The second session examines global legal regimes and regulatory mechanisms that govern the activities of private actors in the security sector. The third session draws on governance models of other private industries performing public functions in order to identify regulatory elements that could be applied to PMSCs to ensure accountability and prevent abuses. The fourth session examines applicable laws and regulatory challenges particular to privatization of specific military and security services. The final panel will seek to distil policy implications, including what limitations, if any, should be placed on states’ ability to contract out security services.
The discussion will range broadly across regulatory and governance issues in private provision of public functions, but will focus primarily on private actors providing services that impact the fundamental rights of the affected population. The discussion of private security sector will focus primarily on security services that have a potential for lethal use of force.
