Raymond Saner (2015); “Private Military and Security Companies: Industry-Led Self-Regulatory Initiatives versus State-Led Containment Strategy”. Recent self-regulatory guidelines that have been created by private military and security companies (PMSCs) in order to deter calls for stricter regulations of the industry. This “battle of influence” over the regulation of the use of force, the author contends, leads to rising tensions between stakeholders who form coalitions consisting of states, PMSCs, and civil society actors on either side of the regulation cleavage. The paper calls for new measures that continue to build on IHL and the Geneva Conventions, but that go beyond the current regulatory positions of existing international initiatives. This paper be cited as Raymond Saner (2015); “Private Military and Security Companies: Industry-Led Self-Regulatory Initiatives versus State-Led Containment Strategy”, The Center for Conflict, Development and Peace Building, Graduate Institute, CCDP Working Paper 11 2015, University of Geneva.