MERCURY - Mercenarism and the Accountability Void: Finding routes to accountability and remedy for the victims of human rights abuses perpetrated by mercenaries

The recent increasing use of mercenaries in armed conflicts such as in Libya, Central African Republic, Nagorno-Karabakh, Mali, and Ukraine has focused attention on some of the problems arising from the deployment of these private actors. Their involvement in proxy wars, predatory recruitment, and asymmetric warfare, which internationalise, exacerbate, and prolong armed conflicts, creates space for grave human rights abuses and war crimes. Millions of people are directly negatively impacted by mercenaries globally, but accountability is rare, and so these actors operate with impunity, their victims denied access to justice and redress. In essence, mercenaries operate in an accountability void. Academic attention until now has focused on the anti-mercenary norm, definitions of mercenary, and treatment of mercenaries, but there is little research on how accountability and remedy is ensured for victims of mercenarism.

MERCURY focuses on this accountability void, combining cutting-edge, data-driven mapping and analysis of mercenary operations with thorough legal and qualitative analysis. The mapping will provide a novel understanding of mercenaries to underpin groundbreaking legal analysis of the shortcomings and weaknesses of national and international frameworks when it comes to remedies for victims. Via legal and qualitative analysis, MERCURY will evaluate routes to accountability and remedy via international and national human rights courts, tribunals, mechanisms, and transitional justice processes, and propose potential pathways to justice for victims.

MERCURY is a 5-year €2M project that will offer pioneering scholarly insights into routes to accountability and remedy. The richer understanding derived from MERCURY will help inform stakeholders on how they can better prevent abuses perpetrated by mercenaries, or failing that, ensure accountability and redress for victims.