The UN Working Group on use of Mercenaries’ calls for inputs

Written By Cecilia Pechmeze

The UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries issued its annual calls for inputs, revealing the most pressant issues for the international organisation with regards to the practice.

The Working Group elected as its main topics for the first semester of the year that of cyber mercenaries, and of the use of mercenaries in humanitarian operations. This choice reveals a resolute willingness to keep abreast of the evolutive forms of Private Military Companies, following up on the 2020’s report by the group on the “evolving forms, trends and manifestations of mercenaries and mercenary-related activities”.

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Heightened Due Diligence: Guidance for business
Heightened Due Diligence: Guidance for business

Cecilia Pechmeze is invited by EuroCham Myanmar and the Myanmar Center for Responsible Business to share her experience of corporate operations in fragile areas. The event will be part of a webinar series by EuroCham Myanmar and the MCRB, that dives into the topic of Heightened Due Diligence in Myanmar: Guidance for Business. The series aims at highlighting Heightened Human Rights Due Diligence from various angles and at providing guidance to international businesses operating in Myanmar to apply this in the local context.

Offsets and corruption: daring questioning
Offsets and corruption: daring questioning

Offsets, that consist, for an importing country, in imposing that a Government procurement be compensated by the creation of value in the country, are oftentimes suspected of enabling corruption schemes. However, available data do not reflect such reality. While, as all operations, those whose object it is to fulfill offset obligations must indeed account for risks of corruption, the disproportionate amount of attention this risk gathers leads to neglecting others, whose consequences may be potentially as harmful.

29 June 2022: join FRA/Pechmeze Law’s webinar
29 June 2022: join FRA/Pechmeze Law’s webinar

Join us on 29 June at 16:00 Paris time, 15:00 London time for an engaging conversation about the legal risks arising from armed conflicts for corporations, from economic sanctions, to criminal risk on the basis of complicity for grave crimes.

Alongside Forensic Risk Alliance’s Charlie Steele, and moderated by FRA’s Uriel Goldberg, Cecilia Pechmeze will answer your questions about this increasingly pressing risk.

For OpinioJuris, Cecilia Pechmeze delves into the implications of states storing their data on the cloud
For OpinioJuris, Cecilia Pechmeze delves into the implications of states storing their data on the cloud

Governments, everywhere, have been using foreign Cloud Service Providers, leading to their data sometimes being located abroad. Beyond cyber security considerations, this raises questions regarding the qualification of an operation targeting government data located abroad. Practically, what would be the legal implications of a cyber operation conducted by an operating state A, against a targeted state B’s data located on host state C’s territory? A cyber operation affecting data only would unlikely amount to use of force or armed attack. This short essay thus reflects on the possibility for such an operation to constitute a violation of sovereignty and an intervention only.

In OpinioJuris, Cecilia Pechmeze’s piece on France’s responsibility in the Genocide in Rwanda
In OpinioJuris, Cecilia Pechmeze’s piece on France’s responsibility in the Genocide in Rwanda

Cecilia Pechmeze’s piece on France’s state responsibility for the genocide of the Tutsi population in Rwanda was published in OpinioJuris.

Cecilia Pechmeze
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