The private military and security contractors in armed conflicts under international humanitarian law

Case study of Russian PMSCs

Abstract

The participation of private and military contractors in armed conflicts is the contemporary phenomenon that concerned policymakers and military strategists, particularly Russian contractors. This phenomenon attracts most politicians to set up initiatives and to draw international guidelines to all concerned parties. The purpose of this research paper is to investigate the condition of Russian private military and security companies (PMSCs) in recent armed conflicts. The research is based on the realism approach, which will help explain Russian state behavior towards PMSCs, while the neoliberalism approach will help to explore this phenomenon from the Russian economic perspective. This research applies inductive, exploratory, and qualitative approaches, which solely based on secondary resources and media contents. The main finding of this research shows that those contractors have obligations under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), but the only limitation is the state’s obligation to endorse them.  Besides, it seems that an international treaty between countries could be a practical step towards having a useful regulatory framework.