Abstracts Category : Other

Hired guns and human rights: arbitral justice for victims of private military and security companies

by Kuzivakwashe Charamba

This dissertation addresses the matter of global governance and access to remedies in the private military and security industry (PMSI). More specifically, it addresses the matter of how to provide a more efficient and effective remedial mechanism for victims of human rights violations by private military and security companies (PMSC). At present, victims who have suffered harm at the hands of PMSCs face significant jurisprudential and practical challenges in attaining recourse for that harm, whether through state or non-state, judicial and non-judicial mechanisms. Moreover, such challenges are made more acute by the reality of underdeveloped regulation within the PMSI across all of its governance levels the national, the international, and the transnational. The regulation lacks consistency, cohesion, and congruence. In response to such challenges, this dissertation proposes the introduction of a new adjudicative mechanism for the global PMSI modelled on international arbitration. The creation of such a mechanism entails, first, the creation of a new global governance framework in which all actors within the global PMSI can convene to create a new regulatory infrastructure that can create uniform and harmonised laws for the industry. Second, those laws then provide the procedural and substantive bases by which the mechanism can be facilitated for the benefit of all potential victims of PMSC harm, irrespective of their location. As such, the mechanism will be globally administered and locally accessible. This approach towards the design of remedial or grievance mechanisms presents an alternative orthodoxy for the regulation of global industries away from one which is founded upon the predominance of state-based institutions towards one that embraces a much more inclusive and participatory form of global governance. Cette thse aborde le sujet de la gouvernance mondiale et de l'accs la justice dans l'industrie militaire et de la scurit prive (IMSP). En particulier, elle s'interroge sur la manire de fournir des mcanismes de rparation efficaces et oprationnels pour les victimes de violations des droits de la personne commises par des entreprises militaires et de scurit prives (EMSP). Actuellement, les victimes ayant subis un prjudice aux mains d'EMSP font face d'importants dfis jurisprudentiels et pratiques dans la poursuite de recours pour ce prjudice, que ce soit travers les mcanismes tatiques, privs, judiciaires ou non-judicaires. De plus, ces dfis sont exacerbs par la rglementation dficiente au sein de l'IMSP travers les diffrents niveaux de gouvernance les concernant (national, international et transnational). La rglementation manque de consistance, de cohsion et de congruence. Pour rpondre ces dfis, cette thse propose d'introduire un nouveau mcanisme de rglement des diffrends pour l'IMSP mondiale bas sur l'arbitrage international. La cration d'un tel mcanisme implique en premier lieu la conception d'un nouveau cadre de gouvernance mondiale au sein duquel tous lesAdvisors/Committee Members: Fabien Glinas (Supervisor).