Abstract
Today, the global trend for contracting out the supply of military and security services is steadily growing. Security is being transformed from a service for the public or common good into a privately provided service. The largest private companies in the field have developed more advanced know-how and greater material and human resources than the security agencies and armies of many sovereign states. In this respect, several analysts have made observations on the restructuring of public–private relations in the domain of security. They note that what is actually taking place is a broader shift from vertical, centralised government to horizontal, fragmented security governance.
The implications of outsourcing security services to private agencies are not a priori positive or negative. Ultimately, everything boils down to the way public and private actors deal with the questions of ‘when’ and ‘how’ to go about contracting out security services.
With regard to the ‘when’, states should determine their ‘inherently governmental functions’ and keep these functions out of the market's reach. They should also entrench their independent decision-making capacity in order to select the most appropriate solutions to deal with their security issues. More importantly, states should continue to struggle to protect the safety of their people, irrespective of the latter's ability to purchase security services in the market. The combination of public and private security would not necessarily be detrimental to the public interest if states stopped retracting resources and operational objectives in response to the expansion of the private security supply.
With respect to the ‘how’, states should attempt to mitigate some of the shortcomings in the operation of the private market for security services by taking the following steps:
preventing supply from determining its own demand;
launching competitive bids for every single contract and striving to obtain several offers;
refraining from awarding cost-plus contracts for services whose outsourcing is primarily intended to increase cost efficiency;
avoiding contracting out services to corporations that enjoy a monopoly in the market;
paying greater attention to post-award contract management by substantially increasing the capacity and authority of oversight institutions;
avoiding transferring contract supervision to private agencies; and
calculating the cost of contract management when considering the option of outsourcing services.
Moreover, states should increase the accountability of the global private security industry by taking the following measures:
effectively regulating the activity and the operation of private military and security companies at both the national and international levels, in line with the recommendations of the UN Working Group on Mercenaries;
reversing the climate of general impunity that prevails in several locations where the private security sector thrives (for instance, in post-conflict countries);
explicitly stipulating the responsibility of prime contractors for subcontractor activities;
demonstrating zero-tolerance concerning serious cases of misconduct involving corporations or individual contractors; and
excluding, or altogether eliminating, recurrently and seriously negligent or unscrupulous corporations (and their affiliates) from future contracts.