Human security
Human security is a paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities whose proponents challenge the traditional notion of national security through military security by arguing that the proper referent for security should be at the human rather than the national level. Human security reveals a people-centred and multi-disciplinary understanding of security which involves a number of research fields, including development studies, international relations, strategic studies, and human rights. The United Nations Development Programme's 1994 Human Development Report is considered a milestone publication in the field of human security, with its argument that ensuring "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear" for all persons is the best path to tackle the problem of global insecurity.[1][2]
Critics of the concept argue that its vagueness undermines its effectiveness, that it has become little more than a vehicle for activists wishing to promote certain causes, and that it does not help the research community understand what security means or help decision-makers to formulate good policies.[3][4] Alternatively, other scholars have argued that the concept of human security should be broadened to encompass military security: 'In other words, if this thing called 'human security' has the concept of 'the human' embedded at the heart of it, then let us address the question of the human condition directly. Thus understood, human security would no longer be the vague amorphous add-on to harder-edged areas of security such as military security or state security.'[5]
In order for human security to challenge global inequalities, there has to be cooperation between a country's foreign policy and its approach to global health. However, the interest of the state has continued to overshadow the interest of the people. For instance, Canada's foreign policy, "three Ds", has been criticized for emphasizing defense more than development.[6]
Origins[edit]
The emergence of the human security discourse was the product of a convergence of factors at the end of the Cold War. These challenged the dominance of the neorealist paradigm's focus on states, "mutually assured destruction" and military security and briefly enabled a broader concept of security to emerge. The increasingly rapid pace of globalization; the failure of liberal state-building through the instruments of the Washington Consensus; the reduced threat of nuclear war between the superpowers, and the exponential rise in the spread and consolidation of democratization and international human rights norms opened a space in which both 'development' and concepts of 'security' could be reconsidered.
At the same time, the increasing number of internal violent conflicts in Africa, Asia and Europe (Balkans) resulted in concepts of national and international security failing to reflect the challenges of the post Cold War security environment whilst the failure of neoliberal development models to generate growth, particularly in Africa, or to deal with the consequences of complex new threats (such as HIV and climate change) reinforced the sense that international institutions and states were not organized to address such problems in an integrated way.
The principal possible indicators of movement toward an individualized conception of security lie in the first place in the evolution of international society's consideration of rights of individuals in the face of potential threats from states. The most obvious foci of analysis here are the UN Charter, the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and its associated covenants (1966), and conventions related to particular crimes (e.g., genocide) and the rights of particular groups (e.g., women, racial groups, and refugees).[7]
Concept[edit]
UNDP's 1994 definition[edit]
Mahbub ul Haq first drew global attention to the concept of human security in the United Nations Development Programme's 1994 Human Development Report and sought to influence the UN's 1995 World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen. The UNDP's 1994 Human Development Report's definition of human security argues that the scope of global security should be expanded to include threats in seven areas:
Relationship with humanitarian action[edit]
In several senses there is a natural fit between human security concepts and humanitarian principles. The concern with the protection of people or individuals is a core humanitarian value as well as of human security. In this sense it shares human security's merging of development and security and the casting of the protection of life as the referent object.
Human security and humanitarian action also shared a similar process of evolution. The rise of the human security discourse in the 1990s paralleled an equally rapid expansion in humanitarian roles and a broadening in the objectives of humanitarianism that was labeled the ‘new humanitarianism’. Humanitarian assistance, once encompassing a narrow set of emergency-based life-saving interventions conducted by a small group of relatively independent actors, became ‘an organising principle for intervention in internal conflicts, a tool for peacebuilding and the starting point for addressing poverty, as well as a palliative in times of conflict and crisis.’ It also merged with development concerns such as the promotion of social justice and societal cohesion.
The human security discourse was also used as a tool to resist aid policies becoming hijacked by narrow security concerns. States, such as the Republic of Ireland, promoted the Human Security concept as a way to ensure a more balanced approach to security and development issues both nationally and within the EU.
Despite the sense of a natural fit between human security concepts and humanitarian principles, they have enjoyed a difficult relationship. Human security perspectives have the potential to interfere with the traditionally apolitical nature of humanitarianism in conflict situations, leading to a blurring of the boundaries between politico-military interventions and those designed primarily to reduce suffering.[41] In another sense the emphasis on human security has legitimised the idea of armed international intervention as a "moral duty" if states are deemed incapable or unwilling to protect their citizens. Similarly, the adoption of 'holistic' security and development strategies within UN Integrated peacekeeping missions is viewed by some as having the potential to compromise humanitarian principles.
Authors such as White and Cliffe drew attention to the way in which the 'broadening of aid objectives from pure survival support towards rehabilitation, development and/ or peace-building' led to the 'dilution of commitment to core humanitarian principles'. Furthermore, many humanitarian organisations have sought to develop rights-based approaches to assistance strategies which challenge the apolitical approach of traditional humanitarianism. Rights-based approaches view poverty and vulnerability as rooted in power relations – specifically, the denial of power, which is itself related to the denial of human rights. Hence rights-based approaches to humanitarian action relate the achievement of security for marginalized people to the realization of their human rights and often to broader social change. Multimandate humanitarian organisations that seek more inclusive and participatory forms of citizenship and governance and the achievement of broader social rights outcomes, therefore, risk enmeshing apolitical humanitarian responses in advocacy programmes that push for broader social changes.
Criticism[edit]
In making an assessment of the pros and cons of the human security concept, Walter Dorn includes several additional criticisms.[48] In particular, he asks whether it is in fact as radical a departure in foreign policy terms as is sometimes claimed. Dorn argues that the international community has been concerned with issues of human safety since at least the time of the establishment of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the 1860s. Stuart Gordon argues that Canada, one of its principal adherents, has in many ways simply recast its traditional Pearsonian foreign policy in the language of human security.
Dorn also questioned whether the concept was really necessary ‘since all the initiatives in the human security agenda were already advancing before the advent of the concept.’ Finally, he suggests ways that the concept may be counterproductive. In their effort to fortify against ‘virtually limitless UN interventionism’ governments may repress ‘their populations into servility." Still, he sees an important role for the concept.
Richard Jolly and Deepayan Basu Ray, in their UNDP report, suggest that the key criticisms of human security include: Human security does not have any definite boundaries, therefore anything and everything could be considered a risk to security. This makes the task of policy formulation nearly impossible; Human security, when broadened to include issues like climate change and health, complicates the international machinery for reaching decisions or taking action on the threats identified; Human security risks engaging the military in issues best tackled through non-military means; Human security under the UN risks raising hopes about the UN's capacity, which it cannot fulfil.
Other authors, such as Roland Paris, argue that human security is not such a fundamental recasting of the security debate in terms of a central struggle ‘between Realist, traditional, state-based, interest-based, approaches and new, Liberal cosmopolitan, de-territorialised, values-based approaches, which focus on individual human needs. ‘ Rather, he suggests that the talk of two radically different ‘paradigms’ has been much exaggerated.
As if to answer the points above, a Human Security Index[49] was prototyped and released in 2008. Project coordinator D. A. Hastings notes that "if one were challenged to create an index on the condition of people-centric Human Security, such as the authors of the Human Development Index faced in 1990 and expanded qualitatively in 1994, one could now begin to do so – at least for the sake of discussion and resultant improvements." The release document and a United Nations Bangkok Working Paper[50] publish and discuss the original approach, which is based partly on:
A 2010 enhancement to the HSI recast the composite index around a trinity of Economic, Environmental, and Social Fabric Indices.[52] The result is thus conceptually similar to the Triple Bottom Line of Corporate Social Responsibility as described by John Elkington, as well as to the stated goals of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress.[53] The release note of HSI Version 2 also notes efforts to balance local and global context, individual and society concerns, left-right political issues, east-west and north-south cultural and social issues. Current Version 2 of the HSI ingests about 30 datasets and composite indicators, and covers 232 countries and dependencies. It is released at HumanSecurityIndex.org.
Considerable differences in national ratings and standings have been noted between the HSI and indicators such as GDP per capita or the Human Development Index. Several small island countries plus Bhutan, Botswana, and some central-eastern European countries do considerably better in the HSI than they do in GDP per capita or HDI. Conversely, Greece and some Eurozone peers such as Ireland and Spain, several countries in the Gulf, Israel, Equatorial Guinea, the US and Venezuela do worse in the HSI than in GDP per capita or HDI. Influential factors vary (as is viewed in the data and discussions on the HumanSecurityIndex.org Website), but include diversity and income equality, peacefulness, and governance.