Use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination A/RES/72/158 activities designed to impede the right of peoples to self-determination, to destabilize or overthrow the Government of any State or to dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign a nd independent States conducting themselves in accordance with the right of peoples to self -determination; 5. Requests all States to exercise the utmost vigilance against any kind of recruitment, training, hiring or financing of mercenaries by private com panies offering international military consultancy and security services, and to impose a specific ban on such companies intervening in armed conflicts or actions to destabilize constitutional regimes; 6. Encourages States that import military assistance or consultancy and security services provided by private companies to establish national regulatory mechanisms for registering and licensing those companies in order to ensure that the imported services provided by those private companies neither impede th e enjoyment of human rights nor violate human rights in the recipient country; 7. Emphasizes its utmost concern about the impact of the activities of private military and security companies on the enjoyment of human rights, in particular when operating in armed conflicts, and notes that private military and security companies and their personnel are rarely held accountable for violations of human rights; 8. Calls upon all States that have not yet done so to consider taking the action necessary to accede to or ratify the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries; 13 9. Welcomes the cooperation extended by those countries that received a visit by the Working Group on the use of mercenaries and the adoption by some States of national legislation that restricts the recruitment, assembly, financing, training and transit of mercenaries; 10. Condemns recent mercenary activities in developing countries in various parts of the world, in particular in areas of confli ct, and the threat they pose to the integrity of and respect for the constitutional order of those countries and the exercise of the right of their peoples to self-determination, and stresses the importance for the Working Group on the use of mercenaries of looking into sources and root causes, as well as the political motivations of mercenaries and for mercenary-related activities; 11. Calls upon States to investigate the possibility of mercenary involvement whenever and wherever criminal acts of a terrorist nature occur and to bring to trial those found responsible or to consider their extradition, if so requested, in accordance with national law and applicable bilateral or international treaties; 12. Condemns any form of impunity granted to perpetrators of mercenary activities and to those responsible for the use, recruitment, financing and training of mercenaries, and urges all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law, to bring them, without distinction, to justice; 13. Calls upon Member States, in accordance with their obligations under international law, to cooperate with and assist the judicial prosecution of those accused of mercenary activities in transparent, open and fair trials; 14. Recalls the holding of the sixth session of the open-ended intergovernmental working group to consider the possibility of elaborating an international regulatory framework on the regulation, monitoring and oversight of the activities of private military and security companies, expresses satisfaction at the participation of experts, including the members of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries, as resource persons at the above-mentioned session, and requests the __________________ 13 17-22965 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 2163, No. 37789. 3/4

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