Future Security Trends: Implications for Human Rights ICoCA

S2E3 - In this episode, we welcome Amol Mehra, director of industry programs at Laudes Foundation. He was one of the founding board members of ICoCA. Amol will tell us more about the process of creation of the ICoCA, and specifically, about the role that the civil society play in the process of ensuring accountability of private security companies.

In this episode we speak to Rémy Friedmann, Senior Advisor on Business and Human Rights at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs who was ICoCA's first Chair of the Board of Directors and guided the Association through its early years.

In this episode, we welcome Andrew Clapham, professor of international law at the Geneva Graduate Institute, and member of  ICoCA's Advisory Group. Having been involved in the development and drafting of the International Code of Conduct, he will walk us through the context, as well as the process of the negotiations that have preceded the Code's establishment. 

After a career in the Gurkhas and Singapore Police, Ian Gordon founded his own private security company, IDG Security, an ICoCA Certified Member Company with operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Myanmar. So what are the pitfalls in recruiting private security personnel from South Asia, and how does Ian avoid these? We talk to Ian about the powerful role agents play, and how this is leading to third country nationals contracted as private security guards ending up as bonded labourers in many complex environments.

In the fourteenth episode of ICoCA's podcast series we talk to Mike Blyth, Chief Operating Officer at Risk and Strategic Management, Corp (RSM). With a background in the military, Mike has decades of experience helping humanitarian actors with their security needs and recently completed a PhD on the topic. We ask him about his research and what his experience working with humanitarian agencies and NGOs has taught him about how the sector approaches risk, resilience and security. 

Simon Pears, Chair of the International Professional Security Association (IPSA) shares his vision for gathering data on the treatment of private security personnel around the world.