EJIL: Talk!

Martin Trybus is Professor of European Law and Policy and Director of the Institute of European Law at the BirminghamLawSchool of the University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author of European Defence Procurement Law and European Union Law and Defence Integration and co-edited European Security Law with Nigel White

Chesterman (see here) deals with an interesting aspect of federal US American public procurement law. While touching on certain foreign relations dimensions of the topic, the thought-provoking article discusses domestic rather than international law. However, since the federal intelligence budget of the United States is most probably the largest in the world and privatisation in this area is unlikely to be more advanced in any other country, large parts of his analysis are relevant and important for the rest of the world. Other countries toying with the idea of privatisation of their intelligence services can learn from Washington’s experience accumulated during the last eight years.

The primary objective of public procurement is for the government to acquire whatever goods, works, and services it needs to operate from the private sector. This primary objective is certainly a legitimate motivation for the privatisation of some intelligence services when government agencies are lacking the personnel, know-how, and equipment to provide them. Nevertheless, as most concisely explained by Steve Schooner in “Desiderata: Objectives for a System of Government Contract Law”, (2002) 11 Public Procurement Law Review 99-102, there are a number of other important objectives to be served by public procurement. In any national context the procurement of defence and intelligence supplies and services has to operate within a triangle of three objectives: (1) national security, (2) value for money, and (3) democracy and the rule of law. National security is the objective of the defence and intelligence efforts of any country. Procurement policy and law must ensure that this basic objective is not compromised. The notion of ‘value for money’ requires the procurement process to ensure that the government purchases goods and services under the economically most advantageous terms, most notably at the lowest possible prices without compromising quality and other economic considerations. There is a connection between national security and value for money since the earlier is affected when the security budget is depleted through inefficient procurement and necessary services cannot be provided as a result. Democracy and the rule of law form the basis of a country such as the United States. Not even the national security objective can be allowed to compromise these most basic principles on which any democracy is built. A balance needs to be struck between the three corners of this triangle.

The most striking point highlighted in Chesterman’s article is that the privatisation of intelligence services in the United Sates appears to compromise all three objectives. Read the rest of this entry…

Prof. Chesterman’s article does an excellent job in exposing and explaining the phenomenon of the privatization of intelligence in recent years, particularly in the United States. To someone who, like myself, has followed the PMSCs debate only on the margins, the information that 70% of the US intelligence budget is spent on private contractors came as somewhat of a shock.  Chesterman explains very well the accountability and oversight gaps caused by the outsourcing of both intelligence collection and intelligence analysis. Especially troubling, of course, are situations where individuals’ life and liberty are put at the disposal of private contractors, as for example during interrogations or renditions.

Chesterman also explains well the specific problems that the outsourcing of intelligence, as opposed to PMSCs generally, poses for accountability. These are its inherent secrecy, the (perverse) incentives caused by the insertion of a profit motive into intelligence activites, and the difficulty of establishing which intelligence functions qualify as ‘inherently governmental’, and thus not outsourcable. (Not to mention the sheer callousness of some people working in the field, who can come up with a slogan as frivolous as is ‘We Can’t Spy… If We Can’t Buy’, in a Powerpoint presentation no less, that is featured in the title of the article.)

The article of course focuses on the United States, which both wields an enormous intelligence apparatus and where the privatization of intelligence is most pervasive. A question that I would have liked answered is to what extent is the phenomenon of privatization of intelligence (still) confined to the United States, and explained by its own idiosyncrasies. Do we have, for example, have any comparable data on the United Kingdom?

This brings me to my only really substantive comment – at the time being at least, what does international law, as opposed to domestic US law for example, have to say on the privatization of intelligence? I understand that Chesterman did not want to rehearse arguments on, say, state responsibility and PMSCs – in that regard, Chesterman’s and Carsten Hoppe‘s articles complement each other nicely. I would still have liked to see some discussion on what, if anything, international law has to contribute to managing the problems posed by the privatization of intelligence, particularly those of its aspects which do not necessarily apply to PMSCs generally.

Editors note: Over the coming days we will be discussing (see here) Professor Simon Chesterman’s article: “We Can’t Spy . .  . If We Can’t Buy!: The Privatization of Intelligence and the Limits of Outsourcing Inherently Governmental Functions”  (2008) 19 EJIL 1055 (available here).

Simon Chesterman is Global Professor and Director of the New York University School of Law Singapore Programme and Associate Professor of Law at National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law. His publications include:  From Mercenaries to Market: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford University Press, 2007) (ed. with Chia Lehnardt), Shared Secrets: Intelligence and Collective Security (Lowy Institute for International Policy, 2006)

This piece builds on two discrete areas of research that I’ve been pursuing for a couple of years and are now beginning to intersect.

The first is the privatization of the military and security sector. Building on the project on Global Administrative Law at New York University School of Law, the work that I’ve done with colleagues like Chia Lehnardt has focused on regulation of private military and security companies (PMCs or PMSCs). One product of that research was the book, From Mercenaries to Market, and a key argument was that we need to take the emerging market for force seriously – rather than pursuing the abolitionist approach that had long dominated discussion of this issue within the United Nations.

The second area is the oversight and accountability of intelligence services. I now teach a course on “Intelligence Law” at the National University of Singapore under the auspices of the NYU School of Law Singapore Programme and have written about the difficulty of using law that must normally be public to regulate government activities that must often be kept secret.

The article partly documents the privatization of intelligence, but also suggests the beginnings of an answer to a question that has long dogged debates over PMCs: what can and what cannot be outsourced?

Though it still lags behind the privatization of military services, the privatization of intelligence expanded dramatically with the growth in intelligence activities after September 11. This has seen an enormous increase in the money spent on intelligence (dominated by large items such as spy satellites) but also in the proportion of personnel working on contract. At the CIA’s station in Islamabad, for example, contractors reportedly outnumber government employees three-to-one. Read the rest of this entry…