International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 125

Private Security on a Global Level
African states have difficulty establishing a regulatory framework due to their weak
state structure. In any case, the issue of the effective application of legislation is open to
question, and the debate is focused in part on private military and security companies,
the Montreux Document, and the IcoC (the International Code of Conduct). 31
From the present table of comparison, it seems best to extract the constituent
or potential elements for future development—the space for greater convergence in
the future is clearly there.
IV. Regulatory and Normative Convergence Will Continue
A prime factor for convergence is the increasing number of businesses and
operatives in private security in the majority of countries. Thus the very fact that
private security is growing in numbers seems to act as a lever for harmonization
and regulation. This is the explanation advanced by Argentina, Chile, the UAE,
India, Portugal, Thailand, Jamaica, Canada, the Czech Republic, El Salvador, and
Liechtenstein. It would certainly be recognized in France, too. The landscape in Europe
was itself transformed at the turn of the 2010s, as the majority model became that of
member states where private security operatives outnumber those of public security.
This statistical trend converging toward a growing private provision that surpasses
public provision is expected to continue, particularly due to budgetary constraints that
are shared globally, and to the threat of terrorism, which requires ever greater focus
by police forces on the top shelf of insecurity.
Private security being a market, the growth in provision is in response to a
growth in demand. While the need for personal and home security is increasing, and
public bodies are the justifications offered for this rise in activity, they, nonetheless, do
not fully explain the convergence in regulation. To understand the latter, it is necessary
to take into account the purchasing of private security by international organizations,
whether nongovernmental, public or private, political, diplomatic, sporting, or
cultural—the UN, NATO, the European Commission, the ICO, FIFA, UEFA, the Red
Cross, the OECD, etc. These organizations make an extensive use of private security
and, as they have representations in different countries or organize successive events
in different countries, tend to harmonize their own demands and their contractual
requirements. As a result, the provision of private security is also harmonized.
These international organizations spread models of requirements and solutions,
and thus transcend national frameworks, in some cases compelling them to adapt. The
most newsworthy example in the field is that of “fan zones,” whether instituted for
the World Cup, the UEFA Cup, or the Olympic Games, especially since they emerged
31
An example from Senegal—the intervention of Jean Leopold Guèye, General Secretary of the National
Syndicate of Conveyors of Security Officers and Funds (Synacofas), at the Regional Conference
on the Montreux Document on Private Military and Security Companies, Dakar, Sénégal, June
4–5, 2014, https://alysagne.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/senegal-etat-des-lieux-des-entreprises-desecutite-privee-le-mal-vivre-des-agents-des-esp/.
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