Books - July 27, 2009

Beyond Market Forces: Regulating the Global Security Industry

James Cockayne (editor), Alison Gurin, Emily Speers Mears, Iveta Cherneva, Sheila Oviedo, and Dylan Yaeger

 

• Download this material in PDF form

Private military and security companies play an increasingly visible role in conflict and post-conflict situations. Properly regulated, they may offer efficient and responsive means for governments to deliver security in insecure environments. But well publicized abuses suggest that an adequate regulatory framework is urgently needed.

Over the last three years, IPI has played a key role in international efforts to develop innovative regulatory responses to the rise of the private security industry. IPI worked closely with seventeen states that developed and drafted the Montreux Document, which was concluded in September 2008.

 

At the urging of some of the governments and industry actors engaged in the Montreux Process, IPI undertook a large, highly-consultative research project in 2008-2009 to examine models of state and market-based regulation in thirty global industries in order to assess their relevance for the global security industry.

The results of this study are now available in Beyond Market Forces: Regulating the Global Security Industry, a new book authored by a research team led by IPI Senior Associate James Cockayne.

Beyond Market Forces surveys the existing state of national, international, and corporate-level regulation of this industry, including more than forty Codes of Conduct. It provides thirty case studies looking at frameworks for implementing and enforcing industry standards in other global industries such as the extractive, textile and apparel, toy, toxic waste, financial, sporting, chemical, and even veterinary industries. And it draws lessons from these industries specifically for the global security industry, identifying five different types of implementation and enforcement framework that the industry could consider: a watchdog, an accreditation scheme, an arbitral tribunal, a harmonization scheme, and a club.

Also available for download are a 3-page policy brief containing the key policy recommendations, and a 20-page policy report exploring these recommendations at more length.

For additional information, please contact James Cockayne at cockayne@ipinst.org.

The final manuscript benefited from extensive consultation with and comments by industry, civil society and state actors. Some of their comments on the earlier consultation draft are available for download by clicking on the links below.

• Comments of Triple Canopy, INC.
• Comments of Control Risks
• Comments of Jolyon Ford
• Comments of Eric Westropp CBE
• Comments of Caroline Rees
• Comments of Hugo H. Guerrero
• Comments of Jean S. Renouf
• Comments of Mauricio Lazala
• Comments of Timothy Reid
• Comments of Dr. Sabrina Schulz (Director of Policy, BAPSC)
• Comments of Amada Benavides
• Comments of Jose L Gomez Del Prado (Member of UN Working Group)
• Comments of IPOA
• Comment of (name withheld)
• Comments of Amnesty International