Enforcing human rights in private security companies

How to ensure that the companies that provide security comply with human rights and humanitarian law? 

We will address this question in a conversation with Antoine Perret who has investigated and monitored the development of the private security sector in a comparative perspective for the last two decades. Private security has grown exponentially in connection with transnational activities such as mining, which usually take place in areas of limited statehood. With examples from Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, Antoine will help us to understand the challenges of private security companies when seeking to provide security for transnational business while complying with the respect of human rights. We will also talk about his personal experience of approaching the issue as an academic as well as a practitioner working at the International Code of Conduct Association in Geneve.

Antoine Perret is Head of Programmes at the International Code of Conduct Association (ICoCA, Geneve). Prior to joining ICoCA, Antoine worked at the Business and Security Division at the Geneva Center for Security Governance (DCAF) managing projects and leading research on private security governance. Before that, he was based in Panama working on anti-money laundering and terrorism financing and leading a regional project on mapping organized crime activities in Latin America. 

Perret started his career in academic circles as associate researcher at Universidad de Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia); research fellow at Columbia University (New York, USA), and American University (Washington DC, USA). He taught at Universidad Externado de Colombia and collaborated with UN agencies on security and human rights issues. Perret holds a PhD in law and LLM from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy); a Master in International Affairs from Universidad Externado de Colombia (Bogota, Colombia) – in collaboration with Columbia University and Science Po, Paris; and a License in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. 

He has published several books and articles on private security regulation.