What can be learned from private security companies? : the politics of human rights analysed in a perspective of privatisation of violence

Abstract

The thesis dissertation adopts a processual methodology on the question weather Private Security Companies (PSCs) should be regulated and on the implications to make such judgement. In the end an affirmative stance is taken towards the realm of private violence, where the author tries to learn from this phenomenon from a human rights point of view. The argument takes its beginning in the dual meaning of security. The source to such encounter is the Copenhagen School of security. From there the unsettled status of the phenomenon of privatisation of violence is qualified through an analysis of securitisation in the Jurisprudence of Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben. The analysis then seeks to address the PSC’s current status in International Law and finally the author holds these findings up against the current discussion of Political Philosophy concerning human rights as such, and the criticism of their lack of political subjectivising power. What can be learned by way of conclusion is a reminder that human rights instrument ought to apply to those employed by PSCs.