A legitimate practice? How the United Nations justifies the use of private military and security companies

Abstract

Private Military and Security companies (PMSCs) are important non-state actors with growing influence in international relations. In this paper, the legitimacy of the use of PMSCs is explored in the case of the United Nations (UN). Constructivist framework is employed to understand the legitimation of the use of PMSCs in contacts of international norms such as the antimercenary norm, states’ monopoly on violence and prohibition of use of force in international relations. Based on a search in the UN's official Document System and reports by the Working Group on the use of mercenaries, the UN officials have not given many norm-based explanations to their use of PMSCs and instead employ functional explanations while also framing the use as inevitable. Through the latter, the UN has managed to avoid the responsibility for making the decision of employing PMSCs and largely also the legitimacy of this use.