Knowra Mercenary Mercenary A mercenary is a person recruited to fight in an armed conflict primarily for private gain. The term is also defined more narrowly in international law.
Military recruitment : The process of enlisting or hiring people for service in armed forces or other military organizations. Mercenaries enter conflicts through recruitment outside, or alongside, ordinary military enlistment.
Law of armed conflict : The body of international law regulating the conduct of parties during armed conflict. Its rules set the legal context for defining and treating mercenaries.
Ancient Greek mercenaries : Hired Greek soldiers who served foreign rulers and city-states in antiquity. Their campaigns show that paid foreign military service predates modern nation-states.
Volunteer : A person who freely offers service without requiring payment as the primary reward. Volunteers may fight abroad, but private gain is not their defining motive.
International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries : A 1989 United Nations treaty requiring its parties to criminalize specified mercenary-related activities. It creates a treaty framework against recruiting, financing, training, and using mercenaries.
Military contracting : The use of private companies to provide goods or services to armed forces. Contracting can supply armed forces without making every contractor a mercenary.
Combatant status : A legal status that grants members of qualifying armed forces the right to participate directly in hostilities. Mercenaries generally lack combatant privilege under the relevant treaty rule.
Condottieri : Italian military leaders who contracted their companies to states and rulers, especially during the Renaissance. Their organized, contract-based forces became a prominent form of European mercenary service.
Regular armed forces : A state's officially organized military forces, operating under public authority and a formal chain of command. Their members serve as state forces rather than as privately recruited fighters.
Additional Protocol I : A 1977 treaty supplement to the Geneva Conventions addressing international armed conflicts and their victims. Article 47 defines mercenaries and denies them combatant and prisoner-of-war entitlement as such.
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