Symposium – The Business of Security: New Frontiers and Persistent Challenges in Regulating PMSCs

From July 14 to 18, 2025, TRIAL International, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), REDRESS and the Global Survivors Fund (GSF), in collaboration with Opinio Juris, is hosting a symposium examining the expanding scope of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs), assessing existing regulatory frameworks, and discussing how international law must evolve to ensure their accountability.

While the new regulatory legal instrument struggles to take off, the employment of PMSCs is on the rise, including in new fields, such as the digital domain, the distribution of humanitarian aid, weapons procurement and transfer, or the management of natural resources extraction sites. The persistent failure to hold PMSCs and their personnel accountable for violations -despite well-documented abuses, including in conflict zones-  reveals deep-rooted weaknesses in the international system.

As UN negotiations toward a new legal instrument continue, this symposium offers a timely moment to reflect on existing gaps and to advocate for a strong, binding framework that places victims’ rights and accountability at its core.

• Introduction
• Macias-Tolosa, de Deus Pereira, Jezdimirovic Ranito, Small – Use of Maritime PMSCs, Weapons Procurement and Predatory Recruitment – New Frontiers in PMSC Regulation 
• Blancafort, Mieszkowska, Foster and Watson – The Role of PMSCs in the Proliferation of Weapons and Implications under Arms Control Mechanisms
• Aparac – PMSCs – Deadly Agents functioning as humanitarian actors [upcoming]
• Schwitzguébel, Siatitsa – When surveillance goes [upcoming]
• Bernard – Revisiting the International Regulation of Private Military and Security Companies in the Digital Age
• Lubin – Integration of cyber and surveillance capabilities into the work of private security service [upcoming]
• Jayashankar – From Power to Peril: Risk Transfer by Private Military Security Companies and the Global South’s Burden [upcoming]
• Freeman, Gahremani – Who is Responsible? When Private Military Companies Aren’t Completely Private [upcoming]
• Bürky Arellano – Ukraine’s new bill on PMSCs: A possible Pandora’s Box for operations abroad? [upcoming]
• Agenjo – From Contract to Combat: Individual Criminal Liability of PMSC Personnel and Its Integration into Emerging Treaty Frameworks [upcoming]
• Stein –  Playing regulatory catch up – PMSCs and the new Draft Instruments [upcoming]
• Marcén Naval – Profit, Power, and the Privatised Battlefield [upcoming]