ABSTRACT
The author addresses the perspective of the ethics of state policy, the question of whether or not states have a moral right to prevent their citizens from travelling abroad in order to work as third country national (TCN) security contractors. He argues that both the principle of state neutrality, and the limits of the terms of the social contract, weighs heavily against blanket prohibitions of this kind. Accordingly it seems to him that legislative instruments like South Africa's Prohibition of Mercenary Activities and Regulation of Certain Activities in Country of Armed Conflict Act 27 of 2006 are at odds with what ethical public policy should look like for a liberal state. The Australian government, is doing, and has done, relatively little to control the Australian citizens travelling abroad to zones of conflict to take up arms as TCN employees of private security companies (PSCs).
