Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

On September 17, 2007, the United States Private Military Firm ("PMF") Blackwater was involved in a street battle in Baghdad that killed at least nine civilians and wounded more than a dozen others. Blackwater, allegedly acting in self-defense, had been escorting a U.S. State Department official when the shooting began.' The reaction of the Iraqi government was swift, commencing an investigation into the incident and revoking Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq. However, Order 17, a regulation established under the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in 2004 establishes that American private security firms have immunity from prosecution in Iraq. Further, some have doubted whether the Iraqi government could even expel Blackwater at all, because its contract is through the State Department.

This image of PMFs as unaccountable cowboys permeates contemporary discourse on the subject. But if the hands of the Iraqi government are tied, who is to bear responsibility for the acts of Blackwater and firms like it? In May 2004, Blackwater and fifty-nine other private military and security contracting firms were providing services to Coalition forces in Iraq, as well as to a myriad of private companies.' This is a scenario that "would have seemed ... preposterous" to many a decade ago and raises the vexed question of who should bear responsibility for the rogue acts of such groups.

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