Over the past decade, states and international organizations have shifted a surprising range of foreign policy functions to private contractors. But who is accountable when the employees of foreign private firms do violence or create harm? Outsourcing War and Peace: Preserving Public Values in a World of Privatized Foreign Affairs, a new book by Laura Dickinson, foundation professor of law and faculty director of the Center for Law and Global Affairs at Arizona State University, explores the threat that services that are now delivered by private contractors pose to core public values of human rights, democratic accountability, and transparency. She offers a series of concrete reforms that are necessary to expand traditional legal accountability, construct better mechanisms of public participation, and alter the organizational structure and institutional culture of contractor firms.
Please join the Center for American Progress for a provocative discussion with the book’s author.
Copies of Outsourcing War and Peace will be available for purchase at the event.
Featured speakers:
Laura Dickinson, author, Outsourcing War and Peace; Foundation Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Center for Law and Global Affairs, Arizona State University
Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Melina Milazzo, Pennoyer Fellow, Human Rights First
Moderated by:
Pratap Chatterjee, Visiting Fellow, Center for American Progress