A/HRC/7/7 page 9 24. The globalization of the world economy and the shifting from centralized government to diffused “governance”11 or “ungovernance”,12 together with the downsizing of regular armed forces of States, which have had important reductions in the public sector both in developed and developing countries13 are some of the causes behind the rapid development of the privatization of violence. In many of today’s “failed states”, the globalization of the economy, together with the bottom-up privatization of violence, in which non-State actors such as paramilitaries and warlords control natural resources, has had destructive effects because of the attempts by foreign actors to link their wealth (oil, gas, diamonds, timber and precious metals) to the world market and to control their national economy.14 Classical inter-State wars with clear front lines have almost disappeared. Instead, we witness low-intensity armed conflicts; a widespread use of light weapons; and the privatization of military functions and asymmetry of the parties in the conflict.15 25. The outsourcing of a number of basic functions which traditionally were carried out by national armies or police forces, known as the top-down privatization, has blurred the borderlines between the public services of the State and the private commercial sector creating a dangerous “grey zone”. In zones of armed conflict the employees of transnational private military and security companies, contracted as civilians but armed as military personnel, operate in these “grey zones” with uncertainties as to whether their status is that of a combatant or of a civilian. As has been synthesized by one analyst, the development of private military and security companies has produced a new type of security guards and private soldiers who operate in war zones and high-risk insecurity areas under murky legal restraints.16 These new modalities have replaced to a certain extent the use of traditional individual mercenaries. 26. Private military and security companies fill the vacuum mainly left in three types of unstable situations: (i) in zones of low-intensity armed conflict (the new asymmetrical wars) where the armies are not fully deployed or in post-conflict situations with a high level of insecurity; (ii) in armed conflicts when international organizations do not intervene; and (iii) in troubled areas in developing countries where there is no presence of the State and extractive 11 E. Krahmann, “Private Firms and the New Security”, 43rd Annual Convention, International Studies Association, New Orleans, 2002. 12 Anna Leander, “Global Ungovernance: Mercenaries, States and the Control over Violence”, Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, 2001. 13 G. Carbonnier, “Privatisations, sous-traitance et partenariats public-privé: charity.com ou business.org?”, IRRC December, 2004, vol. 86, No. 856. 14 H. Munkler, “The new wars”, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2005. 15 H. Munkler, ibid. 16 Robert Y. Pelton, “Licensed to Kill”, Crown Publishers, New York, 2006, p. 342.