Mercenary soldiers are on the streets of Baghdad, Kabul and even New Orleans -- but under whose watch? According to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times, legal experts assert that the Blackwater contractors accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September cannot be prosecuted under either Iraqi or U.S. law -- even if an FBI investigation validates the Iraqi view that the attack was unprovoked.

Hired mercenaries and their actions will be the focus of a panel, "Killers for Hire: An Investigation of Mercenary Armies," Tuesday, Nov. 13, at 6 p.m. in the Mancuso Amphitheater (G90) Myron Taylor Hall on the Cornell campus.

The panel was coordinated by the Cornell chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), which also is sponsoring "Military Contractor Awareness Week" beginning Nov. 12 in conjunction with other campus groups across the country. The NLG is a membership of progressive civil-rights attorneys and public advocates.

Panel speakers include: David Wippman, Cornell vice provost for international relations and professor of law; Matthew Evangelista, professor of government and director of the Cornell Peace Studies Program; and Judith Reppy, professor of science and technology studies. Student speakers include Montse Ferrer, a second-year Cornell law student and author of a forthcoming "Note for the Cornell Law Review" on military contractors; and James Louis Saeli, president of the Cornell chapter of the American Constitution Society and an Air Force veteran of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

"Blackwater, DynCorp and TripleCanopy provide over 30,000 gun-toting soldiers in Iraq, making mercenaries the second-largest army in Iraq," says Christian Williams, vice president of Cornell NLG. "The mercenary movement began in the modern era with excess South African apartheid-era troops fighting against rebels in Angola. Now we have former Delta Force troops patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Katrina. Yet, these fighters are not governed by military law, are paid six and seven times what professional soldiers are paid, and operate outside of Congressional oversight. How do these developments serve the interests of democracy?"

The Cornell chapter of the NLG has been raising awareness about the presence of private military companies in Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans.

"The international community has long agreed that wartime conduct should be regulated through rules," said Katie Kokkelenberg, a second-year law student and leader of Cornell Advocates for Human Rights. "The U.S. government's rapidly increasing use of private military contractors is particularly problematic, as these companies are not being held liable for their criminal conduct under domestic, international or military law. The State Department's recent grant of immunity to Blackwater is just one more example of the Bush administration's blatant disregard for international legal standards."

For more information contact Michael Siegel, Cornell NLG president, at (510) 289-3318, mjs328@cornell.edu; or Ginger McCall, Cornell NLG vice president, (724) 263-9229, fightingdestiny@gmail.com.