It urges States to renounce the inclusion of immunity provisions in bilateral agreements for their national contractors working abroad.

It welcomes the recent initiative of the United Nations Secretariat to elaborate a comprehensive policy regarding the use of PMSCs by the United Nations and calls on the UN to elaborate a clear set of criteria, vetting standards as well as an oversight mechanism to monitor compliance of private security contractors with the UN policy. The Working Group recommends that in the process of this work, IASMN takes into consideration the definitions, criteria and principles regarding the use, regulation and oversight of PMSCs, as developed by the Working Group in cooperation with member-States and NGOs and experts and contained in its draft convention elaborated by the Group. In this regard, the Working Group recommends that the UN ensure adequate vetting of PMSCs personnel as well as appropriate human rights and international humanitarian law training. It also recommends the UN to set up a specific and transparent Register of PMSCs vetted and recommended for contracting within the UN. No companies with criminal records or whose personnel are under investigation for human rights abuses should be allowed for contracting by the United Nations.

The Working Group recalls it submitted to the Human Rights Council at its fifteenth session a possible draft convention for the regulation, monitoring and oversight of private military and security companies. The Working Group believes that the Human Rights Council would constitute the best forum for the development of a new international instrument for the regulation, oversight and monitoring of PMSCs, to address the human rights impact of the activities of PMSCs.

The Working Group is of the opinion that voluntary codes of conducts for PMSCs are a useful mechanism and should be encouraged. However, it firmly belives that it should be combined with the elaboration and adoption of legally binding instruments at the national, regional and international level.

The Working Group encourages Member States to carefully consider the present draft proposal for a possible new international legal instrument regulating PMSCs and recommends to all Member States, in particular those who are confronted with the phenomenon of PMSCs, as contracting States, States of operations, home States or States whose nationals are employed to work for a PMSC, to contribute to the Human Rights Council open-ended Working Group tasked with elaborating a new convention regulating PMSCs taking into account the initial work done by the Working Group on the use of mercenaries, if such mechanism is established.

 

ANNEX