This committee is of the opinion, as indicated in our basic and goal declarations, that under different circumstances different kinds of humanitarian intervention are possible and necessary.

Different actors may take the initiative and the lead: the United Nations or other international organisations, NATO or other security organisations, one or more states in a ‘coalition of the willing’, or one or more non-state organisations made up of volunteers, rebels or mercenaries.

Combinations of these actors are conceivable – and have occurred in practice – who may operate jointly and simultaneously or relieve each other before, during and after an intervention.

Here we focus on the most controversial actor within the ‘non-state’ option: mercenaries Employing and deploying mercenaries and private military companies (PMC’s) like Executive Outcomes (EO) and Sandline International (which apparently ceased to be active since April 2004) can be risky given their commercial motives and often dubious backgrounds.

On the other hand: these ‘private militaries’ have saved many lives. Thus PMC’s like EO have played stabilising roles in armed conflicts like those in Angola and Sierra Leone during the 90s, by defeating or at least temporarily curtailing the often very brutal rebel movements there.

See further DeclICHImercenaries2005.pdf