Acta Juridica Hungarica
Volume/Issue:
Volume 54: Issue 4
Mercenaries reloaded? Applicability of the notion of ‘mercenaries’ in relation to private military companies and their employees
Author:
János Kálmán Széchenyi István University Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Department of Administrative and Financial Law Egyetem tér 1 H-9026 Győr Hungary

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Pages:
367–383
Online Publication Date:
26 Nov 2013
Publication Date:
01 Dec 2013
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/ajur.54.2013.4.5
Keywords:
mercenary; private military companies; combatants; Additional Protocol I; international humanitarian law; contractor; motivation; direct participation in hostilities
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The purpose of this study is to present the notion of mercenaries laid down in literature and in international law, as its applicability to private military companies and their employees so. The first chapter examines the use of the notion of mercenaries in literature and in international treaties. It explores whether the definition laid down in international treaties, reflect customary international law, or not. The second chapter of the study scrutinizes the various conditions listed in the afore-mentioned notions and tries to find out whether and to what degrees private military companies and their employees meet them. The final conclusion of this paper—of the perspective of international law—is that private military companies and their employees, in accordance with the rules of international law, cannot be considered mercenaries.

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  • As we have mentioned before, private military companies many times refer to that they only offer protective services and do not participate directly in hostilities. The facts are just the opposite. In October 2007, an oversight panel of the United States House of Representatives released a report indicating that Blackwater employees had been involved in at least 196 fire-fights in Iraq since 2005, an average of 1.4 shootings per week. In 84 per cent of those cases, the reports stated, Blackwater employees opened fire first, despite contract stipulations to make use of force only in self-defence. See UN Doc. A/63/325 Note by the Secretary-General transmitting the report of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination (25 August 2008) 9.

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Acta Juridica Hungarica
Print ISSN:
1216-2574
Online ISSN:
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Editor(s)-in-Chief: Éva Jakab

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