Spencer Ackerman November 6, 2007, 1:15 PM

Well, Erik Prince won’t like this.

A few weeks ago, the Blackwater CEO explained that he didn’t like for his employees to be called “mercenaries,” which he regards “a slanderous term, kind of an inflammatory word [used] to malign us.” Unfortunately for Prince, the United Nations has just embraced that inflammatory word.

Private security companies operate without supervision or accountability in war zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and represent a new form of mercenary activity, a United Nations report said on Tuesday.

The United States’ reliance on private contractors has fuelled a growing demand for former police and military personnel in developing countries to be recruited as “security guards” who in fact serve as private armed soldiers, it said.

These forces enjoy de facto impunity under national laws that grant immunity to private military and private security company personnel, according to the U.N. working group on the use of mercenaries. Its report will be presented to the General Assembly on Wednesday.

“The trend towards outsourcing and privatizing various military functions by a number of member states in the past 10 years has resulted in the mushrooming of private military and security companies,” the report said.

Companies like Blackwater represent “new modalities of mercenarism,” according to the report. No word yet as to which private security contractor will be the first to make that its new corporate motto.

Iraq Contractors