Disarmament and International Security Committee
Private Military Contractors
Cuba
Carly Krupp
Private Military Contractors (PMCs) are a widely debated topic around the world. Helping in direct conflict as well as being used for security, PMCs make a profit by helping military and security tasks. As a multi-billion dollar company, the ratio of military personnel and private military contractors has decreased from 50 to 1 to 10 to 1. This shows the rapid increase in PMCs and explains why these industries have increased their earnings over the years. Although they help the military and security, they also pose serious risks and concerns. These concerns include: a weakened central military, legal violations due to torture, and third world countries.
As war erupts, PMCs come in to help the military with specific duties. The way their profits are made allows them to make more money for their companies as war conflict continues. The international community can address this by maintaining a balance within these private military organizations by creating more regulations for PMCS. These rules will help restrict legal violations by promoting peace within these companies, to avoid problems such as the occurrence of when a private group was deployed to Iraq, and entered the city of Fallujah where they “mistreated women and children, and tortured and murdered local men and teenage boys.”
An acceptable use of PMCs would only occur with serious rules and regulations set in place. They have a powerful ability to control themselves and self-regulate being that they are private institutions. This gives them the ability to violate human rights, including sexual assualt and torture while deployed, and disobey domestic laws. Cuba believes that there is little room for these companies to work ethically in our world. The lack accountability needed to make sure that the violation of human rights isn’t perpetuated further. PMCs work for countries, like the United States, who have the money and resources. Third world countries lack these funds and are automatically put at an economic disadvantage, lowering their use for available military aid and raising the risk of violation among their country.
- Carly Krupp
