Human Security

Chapter 23

Human Security

By Amitav Acharya

Introduction

What is human security?

Debates about human security

Dimensions of human security

Promoting human security

Conclusion

Reader's Guide

This chapter examines the origins of the concept of human security, debates surrounding its definition and scope, some of the threats to human security in the world today, and international efforts to promote human security. It proceeds in four parts. The sec­tion 'What is human security?' traces the origin and evolution of the concept, and examines competing definitions offered by scholars and policy-makers. The next section reviews debates and controversies about human security, especially over the analytic and policy relevance of the notion, and the broad and

narrow meanings of the concept ('freedom from fear versus 'freedom from want'). The third section exam­ines some of the threats to human security today: While the concept of human security encompasses a wide range of threats, due to lack of space this sectior will focus on the trends in armed conflicts as well as the interrelationship between conflict and other non­violent threats to human security, such as poverty, disease, and environmental degradation. The final section analyses the international community's efforts to promote human security, and concludes by identi­fying the major challenges to promoting the notion of human security today.

What is Human security? 

Human security is the combination of threats associated with war, genocide, and the displacement of populations. At a minimum, human security means freedom from violence and from the fear of violence.

Introduction

The concept of human security represents a powerful, but controversial, attempt by sections of the aca­demic and policy community to redefine and broaden the meaning of security. Traditionally, security meant protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states from external military threats. This was the essence of the concept of national security, which dominated security analysis and policy-making during the cold war period. In the 1970s and 1980s, aca­demic literature on security, responding to the Middle East oil crisis and the growing awareness of worldwide environmental degradation, began to think of security in broader, non-military terms. Yet the state remained the object of security, or the entity that is to be pro­tected. The concept of human security challenges the state-centric notion of security by focusing on the indi­vidual as the main referent object of security. Human

security is about security for the people, rather than for states or governments. As such, it has generated much debate. On the one hand, critics wonder whether such an approach would widen the boundaries of security studies too much, and whether ‘securitizing’ the indi­vidual is the best way to address the challenges facing the international community from the forces of global­ization. On the other hand, advocates of human secu­rity find the concept to be an important step forward in highlighting the dangers to human safety and survival posed by poverty, disease, environmental stress, human rights abuses, as well as armed conflict. These disagree­ments notwithstanding, the concept of human security captures a growing realization that, in an era of rapid globalization, security must encompass a broader range of concerns and challenges than simply defending the state from external military attack.

What is human security?

The origin of the concept of human security can be traced to the publication of the Human Development Report of 1994, issued by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP 1994). The Report defined the scope of human security to include seven areas:

Economic security—an assured basic income for individuals, usually from productive and remunera­tive work, or, in the last resort, from some publicly financed safety net.

Food security—ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to basic food.

Health security—guaranteeing a minimum protec­tion from diseases and unhealthy lifestyles.

Environmental security—protecting people from the short- and long-term ravages of nature, man- made threats in nature, and deterioration of the natural environment.

Personal security—protecting people from physical violence, whether from the state or external states, from violent individuals or sub-state factors, from domestic abuse, and from predatory adults.

Community security—protecting people from the loss of traditional relationships and values, and from sectarian and ethnic violence.

Political security—ensuring that people live in a society that honours their basic human rights, and ensuring the freedom of individuals and groups from government attempts to exercise control over ideas and information.

Unlike many other efforts to redefine security, where political scientists played a major role, human security was the handiwork of a group of development econo­mists, such as the late Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, who conceptualized the UNDP’s Human Development Report. They were increasingly dissatisfied with the orthodox notion of development, which viewed it as a function of economic growth. Instead, they pro­posed a concept of human development that focuses on building human capabilities to confront and overcome poverty, illiteracy, diseases, discrimination, restrictions on political freedom, and the threat of violent conflict: ‘Individual freedoms and rights matter a great deal, but people are restricted in what they can do with that free­dom if they are poor, ill, illiterate, discriminated against, threatened by violent conflict or denied a political voice’ (UNDP 2005: 18-19).
Closely related to the attempt to create a broader paradigm for development was the growing concern about the negative impact of defence spending on development, or the so-called ‘guns versus butter’ dilemma. As a global study headed by Inga Thorsson of Sweden concluded, ‘the arms race and development are in a competitive relationship’ (Roche 1986: 8). Drawing upon this study, a UN-sponsored International Conference on the Relationship between Disarmament and Development in 1986 in Paris sought ‘to enlarge world understanding that human security demands more resources for development and fewer for arms’.

The move towards human security was also advanced by the work of several international com­missions. They offered a broader view of security that looked beyond the cold war emphasis on East- West military competition. Foremost among them was the Report of the Palme Commission of 1982, which proposed the doctrine of ‘common security’. The Report stressed that: ‘In the Third World coun­tries, as in all our countries, security requires eco­nomic progress as well as freedom from military fear’ (Palme Commission 1982: xii). In 1987, the Report of the World Commission on Environment  and Development (also known as the Brundtland Commission) highlighted the linkage between environmental degradation and conflict: ‘The real source of insecurity encompass unsustainable development, and its effects can become intertwined with traditional forms of conflict in a manner that can extend and deepen the latter’ (Brundtland et al. 1987: 230).

Along with attempts to broaden the notion of security to include non-military threats, there was also growing emphasis on the individual as the central object of security. The Palme Commission’s notion of common security became the conceptual basis of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). The CSCE made East-West security cooperation conditional on the improvement of the human rights situation in the former Soviet bloc. The North-South Roundtable on the ‘Economics of Peace’, held in Costa Rica in 1990, called for a shift from ‘an almost exclusive concern with military security ... to a broader concern for overall security of individuals from social violence, economic distress and environmental degra­dation’ (Jolly and Ray 2006: 3).

In the post-cold war era, the importance given to people’s security has grown in salience. One rea­son for this is the rising incidence of civil wars and intra-state conflicts involving huge loss of life, ethnic cleansing, displacement of people within and across borders, and disease outbreaks. Traditional national security approaches have not been sufficiently sensi­tive towards conflicts that arise over cultural, eth­nic, and religious differences, as happened in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Central Asia in the post-cold war era (Tow and Trood 2000). Another reason is the spread of democratization and the post-cold war emphasis on human rights and humanitarian inter­vention. The latter involves the principle that the international community is justified in intervening in the internal affairs of states accused of gross violation of human rights. This has led to the realization that, while the concept of national security has not been rendered irrelevant, it no longer sufficiently accounts for the kinds of danger that threaten societies, states, and the international community. The notion of human security has also been brought to the fore by the crises induced by accelerating globalization. For example, the widespread poverty, unemployment, and social dislocation caused by the Asian financial crisis in 1997 underscored the vulnerability of people to the effects of economic globalization (Acharya 2004).

Key Points

The concept of human security (see Box 23.1) represents both a vertical and a horizontal expansion (or deepening and widening) of the traditional notion of national security, defined as protection of state sovereignty and territorial integrity from external military threats.

In its broader sense, human security is distinguished by three elements: (1) its focus on the individual/people as the referent object of security; (2) its multidimensional nature; (3) its universal or global scope, applying to states and societies of the North as well as the South.

The concept of human security has been influenced by four developments: (1) the rejection of economic growth as the main indicator of development and the accompanying notion of 'human development' as empowerment of people; (2) the rising incidence of internal conflicts; (3) the impact of globalization in spreading transnational dangers such as terrorism and pandemics; and (4) the post-cold war emphasis on human rights and humanitarian intervention.

Debates about human security

Debates over human security fall into two categories. First, believers and sceptics of the concept disagree over whether human security is a new or necessary notion and what are the costs and benefits of adopting it as an intellectual tool or a policy framework. Second, there have been debates over the scope of the concept, mainly among the believers themselves.

For critics of human security, the concept is too broad to be analytically meaningful or useful as a tool of policy-making. Roland Paris has argued: ‘Existing definitions of human security tend to be extraordi­narily expansive and vague, encompassing everything from physical security to psychological well-being, which provides policymakers with little guidance in the prioritization of competing policy goals and aca­demics little sense of what, exactly, is to be studied’ (Paris 2001: 88).

Another criticism is that such a concept might cause more harm than good: ‘Speaking loudly about human security but carrying a Band-Aid only gives false hopes to both the victims of oppression and the international community’ (Khong 2001: 3). The definition of human security is seen to be too moralistic compared to the traditional understanding of security, and hence unat­tainable and unrealistic (Tow and Trood 2000: 14).

A third and perhaps most powerful criticism of human security is that it neglects the role of the state as a provider of security. Buzan argues that states are a ‘necessary condition for individual security because without the state it is not clear what other agency is to act on behalf of individuals’ (Buzan 2001: 589). This criticism has been echoed by others, especially scholars with a realist orientation.

Advocates of human security have never totally discounted the importance of the state as a guarantor of human security. As the Report of the Commission on Human Security acknowledges, ‘Human secu­rity complements state security’ (UN Commission on Human Security 2003). Nor do they claim that human and traditional security concerns are always antitheti­cal. Weak states are often incapable of protecting the safety and dignity of their citizens. But whether tradi­tional state security and human security conflict with each other depends very much on the nature of the regime that presides over the state. In many countries, human security as security for the people can and does get threatened by the actions of their own governments. Hence, while the ‘state remains the fundamental pur­veyor of security ... it often fails to fulfil its security obligations—and at times has even become a source of threat to its own people’ (Mack 2004: 366). At the very least, from a human security perspective, the state can­not be regarded as the sole source of protection for the individuals (Mack 2004).

Another major debate about human security has occurred over the scope of the concept: whether it should be primarily about ‘freedom from fear’ or ‘freedom from want’. The former view, initially articulated by the former Canadian External Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, focuses on reducing the human costs of violent conflicts through measures such as a ban on landmines, using women and chil­dren in armed conflict, child soldiers, child labour, and small-arms proliferation, the formation of an International Criminal Court, and promulgating human rights and international humanitarian law (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada) 1999; The Ottawa Citizen, 28 May 1998: A18). From this perspective, the UN Charter,

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and thi Geneva Conventions are the ‘core elements’ of the doc­trine of human security. The latter view, advocated b) Japan (Director-General of the Foreign Ministry ol Japan 2000), is closer to the original UNDP formula­tion. It stresses the ability of individuals and societies to be free from a broad range of non-military threats such as poverty, disease, and environmental degrada­tion (see Table 23.1).

But the differences between the two conceptions ol human security can be overstated, since both regard the individual as the referent object of security, and both acknowledge the role of globalization and the changing nature of armed conflict in creating new threats to human security. Moreover, both perspec­tives stress safety from violence as a key objective of human security, and both call for a rethinking of state sovereignty as a necessary part of promoting human security (Hubert 2004: 351). There is considerable overlap between the two conceptions: ‘[Development ... [is] a necessary condition for [human] security, just as security is a necessary condition for [human] development’ (University of British Columbia, Human Security Center (hereafter Human Security Report) 2005: 155). Seeking freedom from fear with­out addressing freedom from want would amount to addressing symptoms but not the cause. As the follow­ing section shows, while the deaths caused by armed conflicts have declined, other challenges to the safety and well-being of the individual have remained, and in some cases escalated.

Table 23.1 Two conceptions of human security

	Freedom from want	Freedom from fear
Original proponents	Development economists, Mahbub ul Haq, Amartya Sen	Western governments (Canada, Norway)
Main stimulus	Dissatisfaction over orthodox growth-oriented development models; 'guns versus butter’ concerns	End of the cold war; rise of complex emergencies, ethnic strife, state failure, humanitarian intervention
Type of threats	Non-military and non-traditional security concerns:	Armed conflicts, violence against
addressed	poverty, environmental degradation, disease, etc.	individuals
Main policy goal	Promoting human development, defined as 'building human capabilities-the range of things that people can do, and what they can be ... The most basic capabilities for human development are leading a long and healthy life, being educated and having adequate resources for a decent standard of living... [and] social and political participation in society'. These capabilities are undermined by poverty, disease and ill-health, illiteracy, discrimination, threat of violent conflict, and denial of political and civil liberties. (UNDP 2005: 18-19)	Protecting people in conflict zones; reducing the human costs of conflict through a ban on landmines and child soldiers; protecting human rights; developing peacebuilding mechanisms

Key Points

The concept of human security has been criticized: (1) for being too broad to be analytically meaningful or to serve as the basis for policy-making; (2) for creating false expectations about assistance to victims of violence which the international community cannot deliver; and (3) for ignoring the role of the state in providing security to the people.

Even among its advocates, differences exist as to whether human security is about 'freedom from fear' or 'freedom from want'. The former stresses protecting people from violent conflicts through measures such as a ban on landmines and child soldiers. For the latter, human security is a broader notion involving the reduction of threats to the well-being of people, such as poverty and disease.

Ultimately, however, both sides agree that human security is about security of individuals rather than of states, and that protecting people requires going beyond traditional principles of state sovereignty.

Dimensions of human security

Controversies surround research on trends in armed violence—a key indicator of human security. The first Human Security Report, released in 2005, claimed a 40 per cent drop in armed conflicts (with at least twenty- five battle-related deaths, where one of the parties was a state) in the world since 1991, as well as a 98 per cent decline in the average number of battle deaths per con­flict per year (Human Security Report 2005). The report listed several reasons for this, such as rising economic interdependence (which increases the costs of conflict); growing democratization (the underlying assumption here being that democracies tend to be better at peace­ful resolution of conflicts); a growing number of inter­national institutions that can mediate in conflicts; the impact of international norms against violence, includ­ing war crimes and genocide; the end of colonialism; and the end of the cold war. A specific reason identified by the Report is the dramatic increase in the UN’s role in areas such as preventive diplomacy and peacemak­ing activities, post-conflict peacebuilding, the willing­ness of the UN Security Council to use military action to enforce peace agreements, the deterrent effects of war crime trials by the war crimes tribunals and the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the greater resort to reconciliation and addressing the root causes of conflict (Human Security Report 2005: Part V).

Yet the optimism created by the Report did not last long. Confirming the observation made by this chap­ter in the fifth edition of this book that ‘the decline in armed conflicts around the world is not necessarily irreversible’, the Human Security Report for 2009-10 found a 25 per cent increase in armed conflicts between 2003 and 2008 (Simon Fraser University, Human Security Research Group 2011; see also Fig. 23.1). A large percentage of these conflicts—a quarter of those that started between 2004 and 2008—were related to ‘Islamist political violence’. These increases were partly due to ‘minor conflicts’ with few casualties. While the ‘war on terror’ played an important part in the increas­ing number and deadliness of conflicts, viewed from a longer-term perspective, the level of conflict in the Islamic world is lower than two decades earlier. And in terms of casualty levels, the average annual battle-death toll per conflict was less than 1,000 in the new millen­nium (2008), compared to 10,000 in the 1950s. Yet there remains the possibility of violence associated with the ‘Arab Spring’ and its aftermath, which, although low for now, could escalate due to the on-going strife in Syria and instability in transitional societies.

There are horrific costs associated with these con­flicts. Deaths directly or indirectly attributed to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (see Case Study 1 in Ch. 12) since 1998 have surpassed casualties sustained by Britain in the First World War and Second World War combined. The conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region displaced nearly 2 million people (UNDP 2005: 12). In Iraq, a team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that Iraq’s mor­tality rate has more than doubled since the US inva­sion: from 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people in the year before the invasion to 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people per year in the post-invasion period. In all, some 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred (Brown 2006: A12).

The share of civilian casualties in armed conflict has increased since the Second World War. Civilians accounted for 10 per cent of the victims during the First World War and 50 per cent of the victims during the Second World War. They constitute between 80 and 85 per cent of the victims of more recent wars. Many of these victims are children, women, the sick, and the elderly (Gendering Human Security 2001: 18). Although death tolls from organized campaigns against civil­ians have declined in recent years, the number of such campaigns increased by 55 per cent between 1989 and 2005 (University of British Columbia, Human Security Center 2006: 3).

Furthermore, some of the most serious issues of human security in armed conflicts still need to be overcome, such as the use of child soldiers and land­mines. Child soldiers are involved in 75 per cent of recent armed conflicts (Human Security Report 2005: 35). Landmines and unexploded ordnance cause between 15,000 and 20,000 new casualties each year (United States Campaign to Ban Landmines website 2007). Despite the justified optimism generated by the Ottawa Treaty (to be discussed later: see ‘The role of the international community’), some 10 million stock­piled landmines remained to be destroyed by 2011. And there remain 80 million live mines undetected (United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs 2012)—some­one steps on a landmine every twenty-eight minutes, and 80 per cent of those killed or injured by landmines are civilians (Koehler 2007).

Many armed conflicts have indirect consequences on human life and well-being. Wars are a major source of economic disruption, disease, and ecological destruc­tion, which in turn undermine human development and thus create a vicious cycle of conflict and under­development (see Ch. 20). As the Human Development Report puts it: ‘Conflict undermines nutrition and public health, destroys education systems, devas­tates livelihoods and retards prospects for economic growth’ (UNDP 2005: 12). It found that out of the fifty- two countries that are reversing or stagnating in their attempts to reduce child mortality, thirty have experi­enced conflict since 1990. A British government White Paper on international development notes:

Violent conflict reverses economic growth, causes hunger, destroys roads, schools and clinics, and forces people to flee across borders ... Women and girls are particularly vulnerable because they suffer sexual violence and exploitation. And violent conflict and insecurity can spill over into neighbouring countries and provide cover for terrorists or organised criminal groups. (Department for International Development 2006: 45)

Wars also damage the environment, as happened with the US use of Agent Orange defoliant during the Vietnam War or Saddam Hussein’s burning of Kuwaiti oil wells in the 1990-1 Gulf War, leading to massive air and land pollution. Similar links can be made between conflict and the outbreak of disease: ‘[W]ar-exacerbated disease and malnutrition kill far more people than missiles, bombs and bullets’ (Human Security Report 2005: 7). Disease accounts for most of the 3.9 million people who have died in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (UNDP 2005: 45).

Just as wars and violent conflict have indirect con­sequences in causing economic disruption, ecological damage, and disease, levels of poverty and environ­mental degradation contribute to conflict and hence must be taken into consideration in human security research. One study shows that a country at US$250 GDP per capita has an average 15 per cent risk of experiencing a civil war in the next five years, while at a GDP per capita of $5,000, the risk of civil war is less than 1 per cent (Humphreys and Varshney 2004: 9; Department for International Development 2005: 8). While no direct link can be established between

poverty and terrorism, terrorists often ‘exploit poverty and exclusion in order to tap into popular discontent- taking advantage of fragile states such as Somalia, or undemocratic regimes such as in Afghanistan in the 1990s, to plan violence’ (UNDP 2005: 47). Orissa in India (see Case Study 1) offers a clear example of how poverty, deprivation, and lack of economic opportunity can trigger insurgency and acts of terrorism, suggest­ing how freedom from fear and freedom from want are inextricably linked.

Environmental degradation (which is often linked to poverty) and climate change are another source of con­flict (Homer-Dixon 1991,1994). Analysts have identified competition for scarce resources as a source of possible conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours, India and Pakistan, Turkey and Syria, Egypt and Ethiopia (Rice 2006: 78). The world’s poorer countries, where families often see the need for more children to com­pensate for a high infant mortality rate and to raise their income potential, account for a significant proportion of the growth in the world’s population, which has dou­bled between 1950 and 1998 (Rice 2006: 80). Population growth, in turn, contributes to resource scarcity and environmental stress, often resulting in conflict. For example, South Asia, one of the poorest and most heav­ily populated regions of the globe, faces intensified competition and the possibility of conflict over scarce water resources. Examples include the Indo-Pakistan dispute over the Wular Barrage, the Indo-Bangladesh water dispute over the Farakka Barrage, and the Indo- Nepal dispute over the Mahakali River Treaty (Power and Interest News Report 2006). The potential for politi­cal upheaval or war as a consequence of environmental problems is evident in a host of poor regions around the world, including North Africa, the sub-Saharan Sahel region of Africa (including Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Mali, Niger, and Chad), the island nations of the west­ern Pacific Ocean, the Ganges River basin (princi­pally north-eastern India and Bangladesh), and some

parts of Central and South America (Petzold-Bradlev Carius, and Vincze 2001). Darfur illustrates the link­age between poverty, environmental degradation, conflict. Traditional inter-communal conflict in Darfu: over scarcity of resources and land deteriorated as a result of desertification and a shortage of rainfall. In the 1970s and 1980s, droughts in northern parts of Darfur forced its nomadic population to migrate southwards in search of water and herding grounds, and brought them into conflict with the local tribes (Environmental Degradation and Conflict in Darfur 2004).

The issue of climate change has emerged as a secu­rity concern for Western countries, although most tend to view it as a national security ‘threat multiplier’—i.e. one with a potential to trigger inter-state war or vio­lence that destabilizes international order (The CNA Corporation 2007)—rather than as a human security concern, in which people’s livelihood and well-being are compromised. But climate change can be linked to people’s human security issues, such as increased poverty, state failure, food shortages, water crisis, and disease (see Box 23.2), which are authentic human secu­rity issues (International Crisis Group 2012; Matthew 2010; Broder 2009). Natural disasters can also affect the course of conflicts, either exacerbating or mitigat­ing them. The December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami changed the course of two separatist conflicts: Aceh in Indonesia and Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka. In Aceh, where the government announced a ceasefire to permit relief work, improved prospects for reconciliation fol­lowed. In contrast, the conflict in Sri Lanka, where relief supplies did not reach rebel-held territory, saw an esca­lation of violence, which resulted in the brutal military extermination of the Tamil Tigers by the Sri Lankan government, with considerable civilian casualties.

From the foregoing discussion, we can establish a conceptual link between the broader and narrower understandings of human security (see Fig. 23.2 and Fig. 23.3).

Women, conflict, and human security

The relationship between gender and human secu­rity has multiple dimensions. The UN Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality (1999: 1) notes five aspects: (1) violence against women and girls; (2) gender inequalities in control over resources; gender inequalities in power and decision-making; women’s human rights; and (5) women (and men) as actors, not victims. Recent conflicts have shown women as victims of rape, torture, and sexual slavery. For example, between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Such atrocities against women are now recognized as a crime against humanity (Rehn and Sirleaf 2002: 9).

As with data on trends in armed conflict and casu­alties, there is controversy over the extent of rape as a weapon of conflict. A recent study argues that inci­dences of extreme sexual violence and strategic rape are less common than believed and are not increasing (Simon Fraser University, Human Security Research Group 2012 (Human Security Report 2012)), while oth­ers believe the figures for rapes in conflict zones like the DRC are often underestimated (Palermo and Peterman 2011: 925).

War-affected areas often see a sharp increase in domestic violence directed at women, and a growth in the number of women trafficked to become forced labourers or sex workers. Women and children comprise 73 per cent of an average population, but account for 80 per cent of the refugees in the world today, and perhaps a larger percentage as internally displaced persons.

Another important aspect of the gender dimen­sion of human security is the role of women as actors in conflicts. This involves considering the participation of women in combat. In the Eritrean war of indepen­dence, women made up 25-30 per cent of combatants. A similar proportion of women were fighting with the now-vanquished Tamil Tigers. Women play an even larger role in support functions, such as logistics, staff, and intelligence services, in a conflict. It has been noted that women become targets of rape and sexual vio­lence because they serve as a social and cultural sym­bol. Hence violence against them may be undertaken as a deliberate strategy by parties to a conflict with a view to undermining the social fabric of their oppo­nents. Similarly, securing womens participation in combat may be motivated by a desire among the parties to a conflict to increase the legitimacy of their cause. It signifies ‘a broad social consensus and solidarity, both to their own population and to the outside world’ (Gendering Human Security 2001: 18).

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the need to secure the greater participation of women in international peace operations. The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations noted in a 2000 report:

Womens presence [in peacekeeping missions] improves access and support for local women; it makes male peace­keepers more reflective and responsible; and it broadens the repertoire of skills and styles available within the mission, often with the effect of reducing conflict and confrontation. Gender mainstreaming is not just fair, it is beneficial.

(Cited in Rehn and Sirleaf2002: 63)

In 2000, the UN Security Council passed a resolu­tion (Security Council Resolution 1325) mandating a review of the impact of armed conflict on women and the role of women in peace operations and conflict resolution. The review was released in 2002, entitled Women, Peace and Security (UN 2002). In his intro­duction to the report, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted that ‘women still form a minority of those who participate in peace and security negotia­tions, and receive less attention than men in post-conflict agreements, disarmament and reconstruction (UN 2002: ix). The number of women police officer; in UN peacekeeping missions around the world has doubled in the five years up to 2010 (to 833, or 6 per cent of the total). Recent UN peacekeeping missions, such as in Liberia, offered a window to the view that women might ‘employ distinctive social skills in a rugged macho domain’, and can be ‘counted on to bring calm to the streets and the barracks, acting as public servants instead of invaders’ (New York Times, 5 March 2010).

Key Points

Although there was a noticeable decline in the number of armed conflicts and battle deaths caused by conflicts during the 1990s until about 2003, these numbers have increased since then. In considering these mixed trends, one should take into account conflict mitigating factors, such as rising economic interdependence among nations, the end of colonialism and the cold war, and the growing role of international institutions and the international community in peace operations, while some of the recent increases in conflicts are linked to the war on terror, 'Islamist political violence' and non-state sectarian conflicts.

The world has experienced horrific acts of violence and genocide in recent decades in places such as Congo, and new forms of violence may emerge. The growing number of weak or failing states, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, poses a growing threat to human security.

There is an interactive relationship between armed conflict and non-violent threats to human security such as poverty and disease. Wars and internal conflicts can lead to impoverishment, disease outbreaks, and environmental destruction. Conversely, poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation can lead to weakening and even collapse of states. Human security research should look not just at the direct and indirect consequences of conflict, but also at the range of socio-economic, political, and ecological factors that contribute to conflict. Such an understanding of human security opens the way for reconciling the two conceptions of human security as freedom from fear and freedom from want.

Women feature in armed conflicts both as victims and actors (in combat and support roles). Rape and other forms of sexual violence against them increasingly feature as an instrument of war, and are now recognized as crimes against humanity. The international community is seeking ways to increase the participation of women in UN peace operations and conflict-resolution functions.

Promoting human security

The role of the international community

Because of the broad and contested nature of the idea of human security, it is difficult to evaluate policies

undertaken by the international community that can be specifically regarded as human security measures. But the most important multilateral actions include the establishment of several War Crimes Tribunals, the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the Anti- Personnel Landmines Treaty. The ICC was established on 1 July 2002 with its headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands, although its proceedings may take place anywhere. It is a permanent institution with ‘the power to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern’ (Rome Statute, Article 1). These crimes include genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, although the Court would not exercise its jurisdiction over the crime of aggression until the state parties have agreed on a definition of the crime and set out the conditions under which it might be pros­ecuted. The ICC is a ‘court of last resort’. It is ‘comple­mentary to national criminal jurisdictions’, meaning that it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or pros­ecute such crimes (Rome Statute, Article 1). Human security mechanisms such as the ICC and War Crimes Tribunals have been involved in the indictment and prosecution of some high-profile war criminals in the former Yugoslavia, Liberia, and Congo, including the former President of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic (whose trial ended without a verdict after he was found dead in his cell in March 2006), former Liberian President Charles Taylor, and the former President of Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo and his wife.

The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti- Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, signed in Ottawa on 3-4 December 1997, bans the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, transfer, and use of anti-personnel mines (Ottawa Treaty, Article 1, General Obligations, 1997). It also obliges signatories to destroy existing stockpiles. Among the countries that have yet to sign the treaty are the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, and the USA.

The surge in UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations has contributed to the decline in conflict and enhanced prospects for human security. Since 1948, the UN has undertaken 67 peacekeeping opera­tions. And over 117,000 personal were serving on the sixteen UN-led peace operations on four continents as of 30 November 2013 (United Nations Peacekeeping website n.d.). More recently, a UN Peacebuilding Commission was inaugurated in 2006. Its goal is to assist in post-conflict recovery and reconstruction, including institution-building and sustainable devel­opment, in countries emerging from conflict. The UN has also been centre stage in promoting the idea of

humanitarian intervention, a central policy element of human security (see Ch. 24; see also International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. The concept of humanitarian intervention was endorsed by the report of the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A More Secure World (2004: 66, 106), the subsequent report by the Secretary- General, entitled In Larger Freedom (UN 2005), and finally by the UN Summit in September 2005.

UN Specialized Agencies play a crucial role in promoting human security. For example, the UN Development Programme and the World Health Organization (WHO) have been at the forefront of fight­ing poverty and disease respectively. Other UN agen­cies, such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), have played a central role in getting particular issues, such as refugees and the rights of children and women, onto the agenda for discussion, and in providing a platform for advocacy and action (MacFarlane and Khong 2006).

Non-governmental organizations contribute to human security in a number of ways: as a source of information and early warning about conflicts, pro­viding a channel for relief operations, often being the first to do so in areas of conflict or natural disas­ter, and supporting government- or UN-sponsored peacebuilding and rehabilitation missions. NGOs also play a central role in promoting sustainable development. A leading NGO with a human security mission is the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Established in Geneva, it has a unique authority based on the international humanitarian law of the Geneva Conventions to protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence, including the war-wounded, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants, and to provide them with assistance. Other NGOs include Medecins Sans Frontieres (emergency medical assistance), Save the Children (protection of children), and Amnesty International (human rights).

Challenges to human security promotion

Yet, whether viewed as freedom from fear or freedom from want, the concept of human security has not replaced national security. The Human Development Report of 2005 estimates that the rich nations of the world provide $10 to their military budgets for every $1 they spend on aid. Moreover, the current global spending on HIV/AIDS, ‘a disease that claims 3 million lives a year, represents three days’ worth of military spending’ (UNDP 2005: 8).

Why the continued importance of national/state security over human security? For developing coun­tries, state sovereignty and territorial integrity take precedence over security of the individual. Many countries in the developing world are artificial nation­states, whose boundaries were drawn arbitrarily by the colonial powers without regard for the actual ethnic composition or historical linkages between peoples. State responses to ethnic separatist movements (now conflated with terrorism), which are partly rooted in people’s rejection of colonial-imposed boundaries, have been accompanied by the most egregious violations of human security by governments. Moreover, many Third World states, as well as China, remain under authoritarian rule. Human security is stymied by the lack of political space for alternatives to state ideologies and restrictions on civil liberties imposed by authori­tarian regimes to ensure their own survival, rather than providing security for their citizens.

In the developed as well as the developing world, one of the most powerful challenges to human secu­rity has come from the war on terror (renamed by the Obama administration as ‘overseas contingency operation’) led by the USA in response to the 9/11 attacks. These have revived the traditional empha­sis of states on national security (Suhrke 2004: 365). Although terrorists target innocent civilians and thus threaten human security, governments have used the war on terror to impose restrictions on, and com­mit violations of, civil liberties. The George W. Bush administration’s questioning of the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, the abandoning of its com­mitments on the issue of torture in the context of war in Iraq, and Russia’s flouting of a wide range of its international commitments (including the laws of war, CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) and OCSE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) commitments, as well as international and regional conventions on torture) in the context of its war in Chechnya have further under­mined the agenda of human security.

Key Points

The most important multilateral actions to date to promote human security include the International Criminal Court and the Anti-Personnel Landmines Treaty.

UN agencies such as the UNHCR, UNICEF, and UNIFEM have been crucial in addressing human security issues such as refugees and the rights of children.

Canada and Japan are two of the leading countries that have made human security a major part of their foreign policy agenda. Their approaches, however, show the contrast between the 'freedom from fear' and 'freedom from want' conceptions of human security respectively.

Non-governmental organizations promote human security by acting as a source of information and early warning about

conflicts, providing a channel for relief operations, supporting government or UN-sponsored peacebuilding and rehabilitation missions, and promoting sustainable development.

The 9/11 attacks on the USA and the 'war on terror' have revived the traditional state-centric approach to national security at the expense of civil liberties and human security, although the Obama administration has modified important elements of its predecessor's strategic approach to terrorism and promised greater respect for civil liberties and international conventions.

Conclusion

The concept of human security reflects a number of developments that have incrementally challenged the traditional view of security as the protection of states from military attack. What initially began as a rejection of orthodox notions of economic growth in favour of a broader notion of human development has been reinforced by new security threats such as genocides in the Balkans and Africa, the Asian finan­cial meltdown of 1997, and the threat of global pan­demics. The concept of human security represents an on-going effort to put the individual at the cen­tre of national and global security concerns while expanding our understanding of the range of chal­lenges that can threaten individual safety and well­being, to encompass both armed conflict and social, economic, and ecological forces. To be sure, human security has a long way to go before being universally accepted as a conceptual framework or as a policy tool for national governments and the international community. The linkages between armed conflict, poverty, disease, and environmental stress are poorly understood and need clarification and elaboration. Nonetheless, there can be little doubt that threats to human security, whether understood as freedom from fear or freedom from want, are real-world challenges which cannot be wished away or dismissed because of a lack of agreement over the concept and meaning of human security. Notwithstanding debates about the utility and scope of human security, there is increas­ing acceptance that the traditional notion of security, focusing on state sovereignty, will no longer suffice, and that the international community must develop new responses to ensure the protection of people from transnational dangers in an era of globalization. The challenge for the international community is to find ways of promoting human security as a means of addressing a growing range of complex transnational dangers that have a much more destructive impact on the lives of people than conventional military threats to states.

Case Study 1

Human security in Orissa, India

Major disparities in human security may exist as much within as between countries. A good example is Orissa in India.

Orissa (population: 29.7 million), located on the east coast of India, is (2008-9) the poorest state of the country. A total of 46.4 per cent of its people live below the poverty line (less than US$1 per day), compared to 27.5 per cent for the country as a whole. Life expectancy (2002-6) in Orissa is 59.6 years (the national average is 64.2), the infant mortality rate is the highest in India at 52 per 1,000 live births (2008, declining from 91 in 2001), and the literacy rate (2001) is low at 63.8 per cent (female literacy rate 50.5 per cent).

It is a paradox that Orissa remains so poor despite having an abundance of natural resources. It accounts for 32.9 per cent of India's iron ore, 50 percent of its bauxite, 95 per cent of its nickel, 98 percent of its chromite, and 24 percent of its coal reserves. In 2009, Orissa had forty-five steel projects representing more than US$45 billion in investment, with another US$10 billion in new aluminium projects.

Poverty in Orissa is overwhelmingly a rural phenomenon, with significant regional differences within the state. Farmers or agri­cultural labourers constitute four out of five poor persons in the state. Its heavily forested interior districts remain extremely poor relative to the coastal areas.

Compared to other states of India, Orissa has not seen serious sectarian violence. Economic growth picked up during the past decade to around 10 per cent. But the interior regions of Orissa, along with the poorer regions of neighbouring states, have witnessed a Maoist (Naxalite) insurgency, inspired by extreme poverty, deprivation, and lack of economic opportunity. '[T]he Maoists claim to represent the dispossessed of Indian society, particularly the indigenous tribal groups, who suffer some of the country's highest rates of poverty, illiteracy and infant mortality' (New York Times, 31 October 2009). Maoists accuse the govern­ment of trying to disrupt their living and deprive them of their land in order to gain access to natural resources in the areas they inhabit. One large foreign investment scheme, a 52,000-crore steel project of South Korean multinational POSCO, faces oppo­sition from local people who fear that it will displace them and disrupt their natural livelihood.

Human security in Orissa is also challenged by environmen­tal degradation and recurring natural disasters, including floods, droughts, and cyclones. From the early 1970s to 1996, its effec­tive forest cover declined from around 24 to 17 per cent.

The case of Orissa suggests, first, that human security needs to be studied not just at the national level, but also at subnational or local levels. Second, poverty is a major cause of conflict. Third, availability of natural resources is no guarantee of increased prosperity and stability. In the absence of measures to ensure human security, they may even enjoy an inverse relationship. (Government of India 2009; UNDP 2004; Government of Orissa 2007; Lepeska 2008)

Box 23.1

A contested concept

'Human security can be said to have two main aspects. It means, first, safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression. And second, it means protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life-whether in homes, in jobs or in communities. Such threats can exist at all levels of national income and development.'

(UNDP 1994)

'Human security is not a concern with weapons. It is a concern with human dignity. In the last analysis, it is a child who did not die, a disease that did not spread, an ethnic tension that did not explode, a dissident who was not silenced, a human spirit that was not crushed.' (Mahbub ul Haq 1995)

'For Canada, human security means freedom from pervasive threats to people's rights, safety or lives... Through its foreign policy, Canada has chosen to focus its human security agenda on promot­ing safety for people by protecting them from threats of violence.'

(Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada) 2000)

'the concept of human security had better be confined to free­dom from fear of man-made physical violence, also referred to as direct, personal violence. A broader understanding of human security as freedom from structural violence will undermine the clarity of the notion and make it difficult to develop priorities and devise effective policy responses.’ (Sverre Lodgaard 2000)

Human security may be defined as the preservation and pro­tection of the life and dignity of individual human beings. Japan holds the view, as do many other countries, that human security can be ensured only when the individual is confident of a life free of fear and free of want.'

(Japanese Foreign Ministry Official 2000, http://www.mofa.go.jp/ policy/human_secuZspeech0006.html)

'Human security can no longer be understood in purely mili­tary terms. Rather, it must encompass economic development, social justice, environmental protection, democratization, dis­armament, and respect for human rights and the rule of law ... Moreover, these pillars are interrelated; progress in one area gen­erates progress in another.'

(Kofi Annan 2001)

'The objective of human security is to safeguard the "vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfilment".' (UN Commission on Human Security 2003)

'the lines drawn between "freedom from fear", "freedom from want", and "freedom to live a life with dignity", are easily blurred in people's perceptions of human security, what it means to them and how it is challenged and how it is to be promoted. This is the finding that we need to bring into our on-going efforts to reach i common understanding of human security.' (Acharya, Speech to UN General Assembly, 2011)

Box 23.2

Key facts about poverty and disease

Those who take a broad definition of human security look not • only at threats to the survival and safety of the individual from violent conflict, but also from such non-violent factors as poverty, disease, environmental degradation, and natural disasters. Below are some of the key trends in poverty and disease.

Extreme poverty in the world has declined. The number of people living on less than US$1.25 or less per day (PPP), fell from 52 per cent of the developing world's population in 1981 to22 percent-1.29 billion people-in 2008. Most progress was made in East Asia and the Pacific, but even sub-Saharan Africa has seen positive trends recently (World Bank 2010a, 2012fa). The global economic crisis could pose a threat to this, although so far its impact has been less severe than anticipated.

Some 10 million children under the age of five die each year.

And around 30 per cent of all child deaths under the age of five are due to undernutrition. About 20 million children worldwide are severely malnourished (WHO 2008).

The world has seen the appearance of at least thirty new infectious diseases, including avian flu, HIV/AIDS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, H5N1 Avian Influenza,

Hepatitis C, and West Nile virus, in the past three decades.

Twenty diseases previously detected have re-emerged with new drug-resistant strains (Rice 2006: 79).

In 2011, there were approximately 34.2 million people living with HIV. But the number of AIDS-related deaths dropped by 19 per cent globally between 2004 and 2009 due to increased preventive measures and treatment, made possible in part by increased support from donors. Women now make up 52 per cent of the HIV adult prevalence globally, and 60 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa (WHO 2011, 2012a; WHO, UNICEF, UNAIDS 2011).

Next to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) is the second biggest killer in the world due to a single infectious agent. Although the incidence of TB dropped by 41 per cent between 1990 and 2011, some 8.7 million people became infected, leading to 1.4 million deaths in 2011. Countries experiencing a major decline in cases include Brazil and China. In 2011, the largest number of new TB cases occurred in Asia, accounting for 60 per cent of new cases globally (WHO 2012c).

Deaths from malaria fell 25 per cent globally between 2000 and 2010. But in Africa a child still dies every minute from malaria. Some 216 million cases of malaria (with an uncertainty range of 149 million to 274 million), resulting in an estimated 655,000 deaths in 2010 (with an uncertainty range of 537,000 to 907,000), were reported for 2010 (WHO 2012b).

Questions

What is human security? How is it different from the concept of national security?

Is redefining the concept of security to focus on the individual useful for analysis and for policy formulation?

Describe the main difference between the two conceptions of human security: 'freedom from fear' and 'freedom from want'. Are the two understandings irreconcilable?

Some studies show that the incidence of armed conflict in the world is in long-term decline. What are the reasons for this trend?

How do you link health with human security?

How are poverty and conflict interconnected?

What are the main areas of progress in the promotion of human security by the international community?

What are the major challenges to human security in Orissa, and what lessons do they suggest for the concept and policy application of human security?

What are the obstacles to human security promotion by the international community?

Why do we need to give special consideration to the suffering of women in conflict zones?

Further Reading      

Acharya, A. (2001), 'Human Security: East Versus West' International Journal, 56(3): 442-60. Examines the debate between two conceptions of human security: 'freedom from fear' and 'freedom from want', with particular reference to Asia.

Commission on Human Security (2003), Human Security Now: Protecting and Empowering People (New York: United Nations). This report, from a commission proposed by japan and headed by Sadako Ogata of Japan and Amartya Sen of India, offers a broad conception and overview of human security, its meaning, and the challenges facing it, and recommends steps to promote human security.

Duffield, M. (2007), Development, Security and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples (Cambridge: Polity Press). Traces the liberal genealogy of human security and cautions that a neo-liberal approach to human security amounts to empowering the state in the developmental process and perpetuating conflicts in the Third World.

Haq, M. (1995), Reflections on Human Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press). This book by the late Pakistani development economist, who played a pioneering role in the Human Development Report, outlines his thinking on human development and human security.

Tajbakhsh, S., and Chenoy, A. M. (2006), Human Security: Concepts And Implications (London: Routledge). A comprehensive introduction and overview, focusing on the conceptual debates and seeking to clarify the ambiguities of the concept. A valuable teaching tool.

United Nations Development Programme (1995), Human Development Report 1994 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). The original source of the idea of human security.

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