GENEVA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Private military and security firms in Iraq should be better regulated, an expert with the United Nations said on Monday.
"The current framework regulating the activities of private military and security companies, based essentially on self-regulation and voluntary codes of conduct, turns out to be insufficient," said Jose Luiz Gomez del Prado, head of the UN working group on mercenaries, in a report to the UN Human Rights Council.
"The activities of private military and security companies take place in a grey zone, in which human rights violations with impunity are likely to occur," he said.
Those companies have been under mounting criticism as a result of the large amount of civilian casualties they have inflicted upon Iraqis.
Last September employees of U.S. private security company Blackwater shot dead some 17 civilians in Baghdad.
Another problem with those companies is that they have taken advantage of existing "loopholes in domestic legislation by recruiting citizens from developing countries" and families of those dead or injured employees found it difficult to get compensation from the private employers, said del Prado.
He called on the international community to make joint efforts to fight against what he called the "privatization of war."