Outsourcing In Australia Essay

In the last two decades, the hiring of mercenaries and private military and security companies (PMSC’s) in conflict areas has significantly increased. This outsourcing has grown very rapidly with the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and while prominent global powers such as the US have become more reliant on services provided by private military firms and mercenaries, weak states as well as international governmental organisations have also recurrently outsourced military operations. The use of PMSC’s and mercenaries have resulted in human rights violations that have attracted international attention and debate over how private security must be regulated. Complications have arisen because there are currently no globally accepted norms or legal framework that can be applied to these private firms when human rights violations committed by PSMC employees or mercenaries occur. The delegation of Australia recognizes the impact that the privatization of security has on the contemporary security context, and deems the regulation and …show more content…
In 2011, Australian forces that were protecting the Australian Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq were withdrawn and replaced with security guards from a private military company based in Dubai. These guards took over responsibility for providing security for Australia’s diplomatic presence in Iraq. Apart from this instance, Australia has not hired any other private security. Australia has not ratified the UN Mercenary Convention, a treaty prohibiting the recruitment, training, use, and financing of mercenaries. However, to this point, UN efforts to regulate the private security industry have been largely inadequate, mainly due to the fact that the nations most likely to use PMSCs, including the China, France, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have not ratified the