The Rise of Private Military and Security Companies in European Union Migration Policies: Implications under the UNGPs

This article examines the involvement of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) in both shaping and implementing the European Agenda on Migration (European Agenda), launched by the European Union in May 2015. The migration policies which have since been adopted have increasingly enabled the outsourcing to private security contractors of various border control operations, including those related to forced returns, administrative detention and security services for the Italian and Greek ‘hotspots’. The article argues that PMSCs frame, shape and entrench militarized responses in the European Agenda. It also contends that the current context of the European refugee ‘crisis’ meets the conditions of a high-risk context, as understood within the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). This re-definition of the refugee ‘crisis’ as a high-risk context, in turn, enables the identification of heightened human rights obligations of home states and responsibilities of companies when implementing the UNGPs.