The United Nations

Abstract

In principle the United Nations is opposed to the recruitement and use of mercenaries; in practice it can do little more than highlight the dangers that mercenaries represent since its capacity for action on this issue (as on many others) is circumscribed by the wishes of the major powers. They show little inclination to ban mercenaries, they claim they cannot control them anyway, and are only too ready to employ them — or at the least permit them to be employed — when to do so suits their political objectives. This means that the United Nations is reduced to denunciation: it may draw up rules for the regulation of mercenary activity but has little or no power to enforce them.