Regulating the Privatized Security Industry: The Promise of Public/Private Governance

As governments around the world increasingly turn to contractors to provide government services in the sphere of military and foreign affairs, significant problems of accountability arise. Traditional public governmental mechanisms of regulation and accountability, as well as accountability through litigation, are often inadequate or unavailable. International legal instruments similarly offer only minimal enforcement of human rights or other public-regarding norms, and in any event they may not always apply to nonstate actors. As a result, we must find new forms of public/private governance and oversight in this rapidly expanding area of military and quasi-military operations.