Deadline: 13.02.2007.

Abstract: Since the late 1990s, private security companies (PSCs) have experienced explosive growth. During the first Gulf War, 1 in 50 American military personnel were private contractors; during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 that number was 1 in 10. PSCs provide a wide range of services, including services typically the preserve of the state, including interrogation, training, protection of individuals and installations, and the use of specific military technologies. Despite their sensitive role, PSCs are virtually unregulated. At the same time as PSCs have grown, traditional mercenaries have not gone away. From combat-oriented private companies like Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone to the 2003 mercenary coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea, mercenaries provide both threats and opportunities for Africa. This paper outlines the nature of private security today, from mercenaries to PSCs, and the current regulatory environment, advocating that immediate steps should be taken to regulate both the PSC industry and the use of mercenaries, at the domestic and at the international levels.

*Co-sponsored by the Centre for Constitutional Studies and the Peace and Postconflict Studies Program.

THURSDAY EVENING SESSION

DR. SARAH PERCY

Title: Mercenaries: Strong Norm, Weak Law

Date: Thursday, 1 February 2007

Time: 7:30 p.m.

Location: Engineering Teaching and Learning Complex E1-003

This talk is a keynote address for the University of Alberta International Week 2007

Abstract: The law designed to deal with mercenaries in the 1970s and 1980s is notoriously flawed. It is full of loopholes so problematic that it has never been, and most likely could never be, used to control the use of mercenaries. Commentators have argued that there is nothing surprising about the existence of weak law on the mercenary question: they argue that states purposely designed weak law to allow themselves the right to use mercenaries while denying mercenary assistance to non-state adversaries. However, an examination of the travaux préparatoires reveals that the conventional wisdom about anti-mercenary law is wrong. The weakness of international law dealing with mercenaries is the result of the influence of social norms, particularly a strong norm against mercenary use. States knew precisely what they found objectionable about mercenaries, and tried to create law that would reflect their objections. The result is a law that contains unintentional loopholes. This paper examines how a strong social norm paradoxically led to the creation of weak anti-mercenary law, and discusses the relationship between social and legal norms. How do social norms become legal norms? Has the anti-mercenary norm been weakened by ineffective anti-mercenary law? Flawed anti-mercenary law has significant ramifications today, with increased privatization of force in Iraq and Afghanistan and the continued use of mercenaries in Africa. Discovering how international law on mercenaries ended up being so weak can reveal the prospects for controlling the private security industry today.

Bio: Sarah Percy is a Research Associate in the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War. She received a master’s and doctorate in international relations from the University of Oxford (Balliol College). She also holds a BA (hons) in political studies from Queen’s University in Canada. Her research interests include mercenaries, private military companies and the privatization of force; the use of norms to regulate warfare; and the relationship between international law and international relations. More general areas of interest include international security and international relations theory. Before coming to Oxford, Sarah taught senior military officers at the UK Joint Services Staff and Command College, where she still provides lectures about the privatization of force. She is the author of a forthcoming Adelphi Paper, The Regulation of the Private Security Industry, and a book, The Norm Against Mercenaries, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2007.

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Series Sponsors: The 2006-2007 Speaker Series is sponsored by the Department of Political Science, with the support of the following: Centre for Constitutional Studies, Peace & Postconflict Studies Program; Canada Research Chair (Political Economy and Social Governance); Canada Research Chair (Social Theory and Social Policy); Augustana Faculty; Faculty of Education; the Middle East and African Studies(MEAS) program; University of Alberta International Centre; the Master’s of Arts Integrated Studies (MAIS); Athabasca University; and the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies.

For more info, contact Dr. Malinda Smith, Coordinator, email: Malinda.smith@ualberta.ca, 780.492.5380 / Nisha Nath, email:nnath@ualberta.ca / Department of Political Science, 780.492.3429.

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Concluded sessions are now available on the Department web site in podcasting and video-streaming formats, thanks to the support of the Arts Resource Centre and Academic Information and Communications Technology: