ABSTRACT
The breadth of the practical and theoretical uncertainties clouding the direct legal regulation of non-State actors is substantial. Despite heightened scholarly interest in the field in recent decades, much of it in response to international phenomena such as globalisation, privatisation and the proliferation of internal armed conflict, few workable solutions have emerged. An overarching aim of this work has been to critically examine the dominant treatment of non-State actors, which has developed in an inconsistent, piecemeal fashion, by subjecting it to a degree of consistent methodological scrutiny largely absent from the majority of scholarship addressing the topic. Adopting as an analytical tool the adverse effects produced by the intersection of non-State armed groups and MNEs in weak governance States, the study sought to expose compelling insights that are conceptually robust, in that they are both informed by, and responsive to, contemporary realities. It is recognised that there is clear value in regularly appraising the feasibility and desirability of potential solutions against this context, in order to prevent the work from proceeding uncritically into the warren of abstract theory. Such an endeavour has proven a complex path to tread, given that a central thread of this study has related to abstract explanations for international legal validity. Through the adoption of this approach, it has been demonstrated that the theoretical framing assumed can demand substantial practical consequences when its underlying logic is strictly followed.
