Experts representing 17 countries agreed Wednesday on a new set of recommendations to enhance state control over private military and security companies. They also reaffirmed the obligations of states to ensure that these private contractors abide by international humanitarian law, according to a statement issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The experts finalized the document at the end of a meeting in Montreux Switzerland…Philip Spoerri, the ICRC's director for international law [said] "The document clearly reaffirms the fact that military and security contractors…must comply with international law…It is now very important that states…hold contractors to account for unlawful behavior.”