The Use of Mercenaries as a Means of Violating Human Rights and Impeding the Exercise of the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination

A/HRC/RES/48/5View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2021.

What other versions does this mandate have?

12 versions · 2009–2021

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2021	A/HRC/RES/48/5	The use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination	1,729	81%Compare
2019	A/HRC/RES/42/9	The use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination	1,725	90%Compare
2018	A/HRC/RES/39/5	The use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination	1,572	93%Compare
2017	A/HRC/RES/36/3	The use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination	1,491	68%Compare
2016	A/HRC/RES/33/4	The use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination	1,957	88%Compare

What subjects does this mandate have?

7 subjects

Accountability Crime Prevention Criminal Justice Human Rights Violations Mercenaries Private Security Services Self-Determination of Peoples

What’s in this document?

25 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms that the use of mercenaries, and their recruitment, financing, protection and training, are causes for grave concern to all States and violate the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations;

Recognizes that armed conflicts, terrorism, arms trafficking and covert operations by third Powers encourage, inter alia, the demand for mercenaries and for private military and security companies on the global market;

Urges once again all States to take the necessary steps and to exercise the utmost vigilance against the threat posed by the activities of mercenaries, and to take legislative measures to ensure that their territories and other territories under their control, and their nationals, are not used for the recruitment, assembly, financing, training, protection and transit of mercenaries for the planning of activities designed to impede the right to self-determination, to overthrow the Government of any State or to dismember or to impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States conducting themselves in compliance with the right of peoples to self-determination;

Requests all States to exercise the utmost vigilance against any kind of recruitment, training, hiring or financing of mercenaries;

Also requests all States to exercise the utmost vigilance in banning the use of private companies offering international military consultancy and security services when intervening in armed conflicts or actions to destabilize constitutional regimes;

Calls upon States to ensure that private military and security companies in their territory operate under contractual provisions, monitoring and controls that comply with national laws and relevant international humanitarian and human rights obligations;

Encourages States that import the consultancy and security services provided by private companies, including in the extractive industries, to establish national regulatory mechanisms for the registering and licensing of those companies, for accountability of the companies and their personnel and for remedies for violations resulting from their activities in order to ensure that imported services provided by those private companies neither impede the enjoyment of human rights nor violate human rights in the recipient country;

Calls upon all States that have not yet become a party to the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries to consider taking the necessary action to do so;

Welcomes the cooperation extended by those countries that were visited by the Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination, and the adoption by some States of national legislation that restricts the recruitment, assembly, financing, training and transit of mercenaries;

Condemns mercenary activities in any country, in particular in areas of conflict, and the threat they pose to the integrity of and to respect for the constitutional order of countries and to the exercise of the right to self-determination of their peoples, and stresses the importance for the Working Group of looking into sources and root causes, and into the political motivations of mercenaries and for mercenary-related activities;

Calls upon States to investigate the possibility of mercenary and mercenary-related involvement whenever and wherever criminal acts of a terrorist nature occur, and to bring to trial those found responsible or to consider their extradition, if so requested, in accordance with national law and applicable bilateral or international treaties;

Recognizes that mercenary activity is a complex crime in which criminal responsibility falls upon those who have recruited, employed, trained and financed the mercenary or mercenaries, and upon those who have planned and ordered their criminal activity;

Condemns any form of impunity granted to perpetrators of mercenary activities and to those responsible for the use, recruitment, financing and training of mercenaries, and urges all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law, to bring them, without distinction, to justice;

Calls upon the international community and all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law, to cooperate with and assist the judicial prosecution of those accused of mercenary activities in transparent, open and fair trials;

Notes the work and contributions of the Working Group, including its research activities, and takes note of its most recent report;²

²A/HRC/48/51.

Encourages in that context continued cooperation and dialogue in the interaction among the Working Group, Member States and other relevant stakeholders, inter alia with regard to the use of sources of information, verification of facts on the ground and the issuance of communications, among other aspects;

Acknowledges that the active involvement of private military and security companies in the humanitarian space may create additional risks of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law when safeguards and checks are not in place to prevent their excessive use of force;

Requests the Working Group and other experts to broaden their active participation, including by submitting contributions, in other subsidiary bodies of the Human Rights Council considering issues related to the use of mercenaries and mercenary-related activities in all their forms and manifestations, including private military and security companies;

Requests the Working Group to continue the work already carried out by previous mandate holders on the strengthening of the international legal framework for the prevention and sanction of the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries, taking into account the proposal for a new legal definition of the term “mercenary” drafted by the Special Rapporteur on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination in his report submitted to the Commission on Human Rights at its sixtieth session,³ and also the evolving phenomenon of mercenaries and its related forms;

³E/CN.4/2004/15.

Also requests in this regard the Working Group to continue to monitor mercenaries and mercenary-related activities in all their forms and manifestations in different parts of the world, including instances of protection provided by Governments to individuals involved in mercenary activities, and to continue to update the database of individuals convicted of mercenary activities;

Further requests the Working Group to continue to study and identify new sources and causes, emerging issues, manifestations and trends with regard to mercenaries and mercenary-related activities and their impact on human rights, particularly on the right of peoples to self-determination, and to consult in this regard with Member States and regional and international organizations, academia, civil society, as well as with other relevant stakeholders;

Urges all States to cooperate fully with the Working Group in the fulfilment of its mandate;

Requests the Secretary-General and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide the Working Group with all the assistance and support necessary for the fulfilment of its mandate, both professional and financial, including by promoting cooperation between the Working Group and other components of the United Nations system that deal with countering mercenary-related activities, in order to meet the demands of its current and future activities;

Requests the Working Group to consult States, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and other relevant civil society actors in the implementation of the present resolution, and to continue to report its findings on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination to the Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly in accordance with their programmes of work;

Decides to continue its consideration of this matter under the same agenda item at its fifty-first session.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

Table of contents