We discuss the legal status of non-state actors in the context of the global fight against transnational organised crime and the security of states. We address the topic from the perspectives of international law (including criminal law), international security and human rights. We conclude that non-state actors such as multinational corporations, private military and security companies, and non-governmental organisations may become quasi-actors of transnational organised crime. Contributing to this probability are their uncertain legal status under international law, certain corporate practices and attitudes, obscure financial flows, and vulnerability of international and national public authorities to corrupt practices, among others.

The problem of the implementation of international legal support of special operations is a natural, historically determined and in fact staying beyond the conventional scope of international law. In fact, this is an emerging international custom based on the practice of states in defending national interests in conditions of competing jurisdiction, the legalization of the resources of the «shadow» economy, the spread of the Darknet, the development of new ways and means of warfare and its propaganda. The transnationalization of organized crime, its links with international terrorism, corruption, cybercrime, attempts to build national security systems at the expense of the security of others, the destructive ideology of national domination, accompanied by the «privatization» of state sovereignty by non-state actors, substantiates the practice of implementing special operations against existing and newly created existential challenges and threats to the security of states.The institutionalization of some types of international special operations is obvious, based on the provisions of the UN Charter, multilateral and bilateral agreements, correlates with the activities of regional security systems (Collective Security Treaty Organization — CSTO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization — NATO, League of Arab States — LAS, Organization of American States — OAS, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe — OSCE, etc.). The uniqueness of special operations in each specific case, the impossibility of their absolute legal settlement, especially in the military-political sphere, raises the question of the need to revise a number of provisions of the UN Charter as ineffective, the formation of new (unipolar) regional mechanisms for monitoring their implementation, the activation of special scientific research in this area.