Regulatory Framework Comparison
The United States, Switzerland and Ukraine rows are drawn from the report Ukraine’s Future Need for PMCs: Lessons from Foreign Regulatory Models (chs. 2, 4–7). The comparison isolates the two mechanisms the report treats as decisive: whether a state licenses the activity of supplying military services abroad, and whether conduct rules and criminal jurisdiction follow personnel outside the national territory. Remaining rows are research drafts pending primary-source review.
How different jurisdictions regulate PMCs, private security companies, defense-service contractors, and private defense-industrial and defense-technology firms. All summaries are working research drafts; verify against primary legal sources before publication.
Detailed framework
United States
- Relevant laws
- Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. § 2778); ITAR (22 C.F.R. pts. 120-130); EAR; FAR 52.225-26 and DFARS 252.225-7039; DoDI 3020.50; MEJA (18 U.S.C. § 3261); UCMJ art. 2(a)(10); Montreux Document participation.
- Export control
- ITAR (State/DDTC) for defense articles; EAR (Commerce/BIS) for dual-use.
- FDI screening
- CFIUS review under FIRRMA for foreign investment in sensitive defense/tech firms.
- Defense procurement
- FAR/DFARS federal procurement rules; DoD contracting oversight; competition and bid protest system.
- Licensing
- Registration and licensing with DDTC for defense manufacturers/exporters; state-level PSC licensing.
- Armed contractors / PSC
- No single PMC statute: control is layered through contract clauses (FAR 52.225-26, DFARS 252.225-7039), DoD policy (DoDI 3020.50 / 32 C.F.R. pt. 159) and criminal jurisdiction abroad under MEJA and UCMJ art. 2(a)(10). Military training and advice to foreign forces is separately licensed as a “defense service” under ITAR § 120.32.
- Dual-use technology
- EAR Commerce Control List; end-use/end-user restrictions; emerging tech controls.
- Classified contracts
- NISPOM industrial security; facility clearances (FCL) and personnel clearances.
- Tech-transfer restrictions
- ITAR technical data controls; deemed-export rules for foreign nationals.
- Sanctions & end-use monitoring
- OFAC sanctions; Blue Lantern (State) and Sentinel (Commerce) end-use monitoring programs.
- Government agencies
- State/DDTC, Commerce/BIS, Treasury/OFAC, DoD, CFIUS, DCSA.
- Lessons for Ukraine
- The report’s central US lesson: regulate the activity, not the label. Defense services are licensed per transaction (ITAR §§ 120.32, 124.1), conduct rules travel with the contract, and criminal jurisdiction follows personnel abroad — a model Ukraine can replicate through contract-specific authorisation rather than a single omnibus PMC licence.
- Gaps / risks for Ukraine
- Highly resource-intensive; multi-agency coordination burden; may be over-scaled for early Ukrainian institutional capacity.
Not yet fully structured. Per-claim source metadata has not been entered for this framework. This describes metadata completeness only and does not change the research status shown above.