ABSTRACT

The sources of international law, whether in treaties, custom, the general principles of law, decisions of courts or the teachings of prominent jurists, consider mercenaries as illegal entities in international relations. By forbidding the opening of recruiting agencies on the territory of a third party to assist the belligerents, the Hague Convention of 1907 banned mercenarism. The 1949 Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims, which consider the status of prisoners of war, among other things, do not judge the mercenaries as legitimate combatants. Uplifting the relevant provisions of the U.N. Charter, the General Assembly confirmed the following principle in its special Declaration on Inadmissibility of Intervention in Domestic Affairs of States and Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty: "No State has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference ... are condemned."