(Re)Establishing Control? Flag State Regulation of Antipiracy PMSCs.

In response to the increasing employment of Privately Contracted Armed Security Personnel (PCASP) to protect vessels against pirate attacks, some flag states introduced new regulations that allow the use of PCASP. The introduction of these new regulations was at least in part an attempt to (re)establish state control of violence. This article provides the background and theoretical framework for this special issue, which discusses how states with national registers approached the regulation of PCASP. Summarizing its major findings, the article concludes that even when states attempted to govern the use of PCASP, operational difficulties resulted in significant shortcomings in state control. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]