The principled case for employing private military and security companies in interventions for human rights purposes

Journal of Applied Philosophy

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 1-18

  Baker, Deane Peter ^a   Pattison, James ^b  

^a UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84865868912     PISSN: 02643758     EISSN: 14685930     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5930.2011.00548.x     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. Deane-Peter BakerThose who discuss the use of PMSCs in such roles include, JustWarriors, Inc:The Ethics of Privitized Force (London: Continuum, 2010), pp. 144-78
2. Steven Brayton, 'Outsourcing war: Mercenaries and the privatization of peacekeeping', Journal of International Affairs 55,2 (2002): 303-30
3. Doug Brooks & Matan Chorev, 'Ruthless humanitarianism: Why marginalizing private peacekeeping kills people' in A. Alexandra, D-P. Baker & M. Caparini (eds) Private Military and Security Companies: Ethics, Policies and Civil-Military Relations (NewYork: Routledge, 2008), pp. 116-30
4. Doug Brooks, 'Messiahs or mercenaries? The future of international private military services', International Peacekeeping 7,4 (2000): 129-44
5. Oldrich Bures, 'Private military companies: A second best peacekeeping option?', International Peacekeeping 12,4 (2005): 533-46
6. Malcolm Hugh Patterson, Privatising Peace: A Corporate Adjunct to United Nations Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Operations (London: Palgrave, 2009)
7. James Pattison, 'Outsourcing the responsibility to protect: Humanitarian intervention and private military and security companies', International Theory 2,1 (2010): 1-31
8. Carmen Pavel, 'Alternative agents for humanitarian intervention', Journal of Global Ethics 10,3 (2010): 323-38
9. P.W. Singer, 'Peacekeepers, Inc.', Policy Review 119 (2003) http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3448831.html
10. Christopher Spearin, 'Between public peacekeepers and private forces: Can there be a third way?', International Peace- keeping 12,2 (2005): 240-52
11. Fernando R. Tesón, 'Humanitarian intervention: Loose ends', Journal of Military Ethics 10,3 (2011): 192-212
12. Herbert Wulf, Internationalizing and Privatizing Peace andWar (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005
13. Journal of International Peace Operations /), the trade journal of the International Stability Operations Association (an industry lobby group), almost every issue of which calls for greater involvement of PMSCs in peace operations.(http://www.peaceops.com
14. Deborah Avant & Lee Sigelman, 'Private security and democracy: Lessons from the US in Iraq', Security Studies 19,2 (2010): 230-65
15. Anna Leander, Eroding State Authority? Private Military Companies and the Legitimate Use of Force (Rome: Centro Militare di Studi Strategici, 2006
16. Deborah Avant, The Market for Force: Consequences of Privatizing Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005
17. James Pattison, 'Just war theory and the privatization of military force', Ethics and International Affairs 222 (2008): 143-62.
18. Malcolm Hugh Patterson, 'A corporate alternative to United Nations ad hoc military deployments', Journal of Conflict & Security Law 13,2 (2008): 215-32
19. James Pattison, 'Deeper objections to the privatisation of military force', Journal of Political Philosophy 18,1 (2010): 425-47
20. Cécile Fabre, 'In defence of mercenarism', British Journal of Political Science 40,3 (2010): 539-59
21. James Pattison, Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who Should Intervene? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 24-30
22. Fernando R.Tesón, 'Ending tyranny in Iraq', Ethics & International Affairs 19,2 (2005), p. 5.
23. See James Cockayne, 'Regulating private military and security companies: The content, negotiation, weaknesses and promise of the Montreux Document', Journal of Conflict & Security Law 13,3 (2008): 401-28
24. Simon Chesterman and Chia Lehnardt From Mercenaries to Market:The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007
25. The Montreux Documenthttp://www.eda.admin.ch/psc
26. A potential reply from republican advocate of the citizen-soldier model that it is important that citizens carry out their civic duties themselves (including military actions such as interventions for human rights purposes), rather than outsourcing them to an all-volunteer force or PMSCs, is rejected in James Pattison, 'The legitimacy of the military, private military and security companies, and just war theory', European Journal of Political Theory forthcoming, and James Pattison, The Morality of PrivateWar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, under contract).
27. Terry Nardin, 'Introduction' in T. Nardin & M. S. Williams (eds) NOMOS XLVII: Humanitarian Intervention (NewYork: New York University Press, 2006), pp. 1-28
28. Kok-Chor Tan, 'The duty to protect' inT. Nardin & M. S.Williams (eds) NOMOS XLVII: Humanitarian Intervention (New York: NewYork University Press, 2006), pp. 84-116
29. David Miller, National Responsibility and Global Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 270.
30. Allen Buchanan, 'The internal legitimacy of humanitarian intervention', Journal of Political Philosophy 7,1 (1999): 71-87
31. David Miller, 'The responsibility to protect human rights', Working Paper Series, SJ006, Centre for the Study of Social Justice, University of Oxford, 2007, p. 5
32. Chris Brown, 'What, exactly, is the problem to which the "Five-PartTest" is the solution?', International Relations 19,2 (2005): 225-9
33. Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000
34. One way to highlight military costs in particular is to invoke the soldier-state contract - we consider this below.
35. Richard Vernon, 'Humanitarian intervention and the internal legitimacy problem', Journal of Global Ethics 4,1 (2008), p. 45
36. Moreover, in the case of the unilateral use of force, the issue of unfairness will arise for both the regular army and, importantly, those employing PMSCs. The latter may still be tasked with doing more than their fair share and, in particular, paying PMSCs to intervene.
37. United States Code, Title 5, Section 3331.
38. Martin L. Cook, ' "Immaculate war": Constraints on humanitarian intervention' in A. F. Lang Jr (ed.) Just Intervention (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003), p. 151
39. This is available at (accessed 1 Nov).http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/infomgt/forms/eforms/dd0004.pdf2011
40. Onora O'Neill, 'Some limits on informed consent', Journal of Medical Ethics 29,1 (2003): 4-7
41. Although we cannot present the details here, a policy of conscription should meet several conditions, such as that individuals should first be given incentives to fight before being forced to do so, it should be fair in how it chooses which individuals are to be conscripted, and there should be some scope for conscientious objection.
42. Cécile Fabre, 'Mandatory rescue killings', Journal of Political Philosophy 15,4 (2007), p. 372
43. In addition, her claim that even risk free humanitarian intervention would be impermissible because individuals are not under a duty to acquire the skills needed for the sake of the needy does not convince. Although individuals might not possess such duties (we remain agnostic on this issue), it does necessarily follow that states and third parties cannot permissibly require individuals to train for such eventualities. If a state leader knows that (i) at some point in the future, the population in another state is likely to be threatened with a serious humanitarian crisis that will lead to the mass violation of basic human rights (e.g. mass killing, genocide, or ethnic cleansing) and (ii) her citizens can be trained such that they will be able to avert the risk, it would follows that (iii) her citizens can be required to trained to avert the risk, even if this threatens their ability to lead flourishing lives for a few years whilst they undergo training. What seems to matter here is the degree and likelihood of the risk involved. If it is both likely and significant (e.g. the impending violation of basic human rights), then conscription in the cases of national defence and humanitarian intervention can be permissible.
44. In response, it might be argued that conscription can be justified in the case of national defence, but not humanitarian intervention and peacekeeping, because of citizens' communal bonds. Thus, one can be required to save the lives of several fellow nationals, but not the lives of several noncitizens. This places, however, a heavy burden of justification on communal bonds, one which they probably cannot sustain.The underlying issue of the moral value is community is too large for us to delve into here. For strong treatments of this issue, see Simon Caney, Justice Beyond Borders:A Global Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005
45. Andrew Mason, Community, Solidarity and Belonging: Levels of Community and their Normative Significance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000
46. Kok-Chor Tan, Justice Without Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and Patriotism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004