Breakfast Briefing with Sorcha MacLeod
’The human rights impacts of mercenaries, mercenary-related actors and private military and security companies engaging in cyber activities
Abstract: In a recent report, the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries examines the provision of military and security products and services in cyberspace by mercenaries, mercenary-related actors and private military and security companies and its human rights impacts.
There is a wide range of military and security services provided in cyberspace, including data collection, intelligence and espionage. Private actors can be engaged by States and non-State actors in various proxy relationships to conduct offensive or defensive operations and to protect their own networks and infrastructure, as well as to carry out cyberoperations to weaken the military capacities and capabilities of enemy armed forces or to undermine the integrity of other States’ territory. Individuals carrying out cyberattacks can cause damage remotely, across various jurisdictions. As such, they can be regarded as undertaking a mercenary-related activity, or even a mercenary activity, if all of the qualifying criteria are met.
This study explores the manifestations and activities of these actors who benefit from developing, maintaining and operating cyber capabilities, which may be used in the conduct of hostilities, in conflict and in non-conflict settings. It assesses the impacts that this may have on human rights, including the right of peoples to self-determination, as well as examining the issue of regulating the provision of military and security products and services in cyberspace.
The Report can be accessed here: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Mercenaries/WGMercenaries/Pages/AnnualReports.aspx
About the speaker:
Dr Sorcha MacLeod is an Associate Professor and Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow in the Centre for Private Governance (CEPRI) at the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Law. She is the current Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries. Sorcha has a particular research interest in the private military and security industry and human rights and she has published widely on this topic. She is also an invited expert to the UN Intergovernmental Working Group on private military and security companies. She participated in the development of the Montreux Document on private military and security companies, as well as the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers at which she has Observer Status. She also sits on the ICoCA Advisory Group on Responsible Security. She has been involved in the drafting of international management standards PSC1 and ISO 18788 for private security operations and advises civil society organisations, governments and industry on business, human rights and security issues.
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