Ðóñ Eng Cn Translate this page:
Please select your language to translate the article


You can just close the window to don't translate
Library
Your profile

Back to contents

National Security
Reference:

Savryga, K.P. International legal regulation of the use of private military and security companies of the EU in the joint operations.

Abstract: The European Union just recently has developed the possibilities for the participation in the global arena as an independent security guaranteeing subjects. The Petersberg tasks were adopted in 1992, and they formed the basis for the joint defense and security policy (the former European policy on defense and security, providing for the possibility to use the armed forces for both the humanitarian operations and active peace-making operations, which may involve active participation in the military actions together with the armies of other states or insurgent formations. At the same time, the European Union did not bypass one of the main global trends in the sphere of defense and security, namely, privatization and contractual delegation of some functions, which were previously traditionally recognized as belonging to armed forces. One of the characteristic features of this trend is use of private military and security companies. In this article the author studies application of international law of the armed conflicts and human rights law to the activities and formations of the EU. The article provides analysis of a number of acts of the EU in the sphere of defense and security. The author draws a conclusion that while the European Union is not a state or a purely international organization, it has to comply with the generally recognized norms of international humanitarian law. The internal acts of the EU establish a higher standard for compliance with the international law. At the same time it should be noted that in spite of the fact that the activities of the private military and security companies in the EU missions falls within the scope of the general legal regulation, the internal acts of the EU are construed in the way that maximally lowers the possible responsibility of the EU for their unlawful acts.


Keywords:

private military companies, international law, international humanitarian law, human rights law, the European Union, hazardous industrial facility; joint military operations, joint military missions, legal regulation, responsibility.


This article can be downloaded freely in PDF format for reading. Download article

This article written in Russian. You can find original text of the article here .
References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.