The concept of human security
Cristina Churruca Muguruza, Instituto de Derechos Humanos, Universidad de Deusto
Human Security has received increasing attention as a framework for understanding the broader factors that contribute to peace and security. Human security is commonly understood as prioritizing the security of people, especially their welfare, safety and well-being. In this new framework, individuals, not states, are becoming the focus of security strategies. Human security is thus both a measure and a determinant of state and global security. Human security strategies are proactive; they stress conflict prevention and peace-building rather than humanitarian response. The strength and appeal of human security lies not only in its new elements but also in the growing inability of traditional concepts of security to generate adequate responses to new contexts.
The concept of human security has achieved great preeminence and acceptance in the post-Cold War period. Over the last decade the central messages of human security as a general policy reference have been gradually mainstreamed in international relations.
The definition of human security remains a subject of debate between the so-called “broad” and “narrow” approaches. Each approach emphasizes a different “leg” of human security: the broad one (freedom from want) has its focus on the development agenda, while the narrow one (freedom from fear), sets its sights on the human rights agenda.
The concept of human security: the broad and narrow approaches
The concept of human security is a relatively new (post-Cold War) entry into the lexicon of development and security policy. Defining human security has proven to be a difficult task. All proponents of human security agree that its primary goal is the protection of individuals, but agreement breaks down over what threats individuals should be protected from. Depending on what one considers as constituting “people’s rights and safety”, the scope of the definition is either narrow or broad.
The concept of human security was initially articulated in the first United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Report in 1994. The HDR Report explored the relationship between security and development, introducing the concept of human security. For the UNDP human security has four main characteristics:
- it is people-centered,
- it is of universal concern,
- its components are interdependent and
- it is easier to ensure through early prevention.
The report proposes human security as a concept including two main aspects: safety from chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression and protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life. In other words, it means “freedom from fear and freedom from want”. The 1994 report concedes that the definition is broad “integrative and all-encompassing”, because it is a reflection of all the threats to human security.
Based on the UNDP approach, the Commission on Human Security 2003 report “Human Security Now”, defines human security as the protection of “the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfillment”. The report drew policy conclusions from a variety of areas including protecting people in violent conflicts and the proliferation of arms, encouraging fair trade and markets to benefit the extremely poor, ensuring universal access to basic health care, and universalising basic education. It is the most widely used definition in most of the writings/debates on human security.
The Human Security Now report defines human security narrowly as the network of interrelated threats associated with civil war, genocide and the displacement of populations. By using a definition that primarily focuses on violent threats, it clearly separates human security from human development. This approach acknowledges the broad conception as a phase in the development of human security, but envisions a much more focused definition, one centered on violent threats.
Several states have integrated the concept of human security into their foreign policy agendas. This is especially the case for Japan, Canada and Norway. The two latter countries launched the “Human Security Network“, a group of like-minded states from all regions of the world that maintains dialogue on questions related to human security. The Japanese government’s concept of human security comprehensively covers all the measures that threaten human survival, daily life and dignity - for example environmental degradation, violation of human rights, transnational organised crime, illicit drugs, refugees, poverty, anti-personnel landmines and infectious diseases such as AIDS, and strengthens efforts to confront these threats. Canada on the other hand has a restricted approach and defines human security as “freedom from pervasive threats to people’s rights, safety or lives”.
Another contribution came from the 2004 Barcelona Study Group’s analysis of Europe’s security capabilities, which drew on a narrow human security concept to design a doctrine for intervention in intrastate conflict situations adapted to European values and principles. A broad concept of human security has been taken up in recent reports to promote UN reform. The central premise of “A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility“, the document produced by the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, along with that of the Secretary General’s own report, “In Larger Freedom“, was that in an increasingly interconnected world, progress in the areas of development, security and human rights must go hand in hand. This recognition has been incorporated into the concept of human security endorsed by the 2005 World Summit Outcome as “the right of people to live in freedom and dignity, free from poverty and despair… all individuals, in particular vulnerable people, are entitled to freedom from fear and freedom from want, with an equal opportunity to enjoy all their rights and fully develop their human potential”. This demonstrates an emerging consensus on a general “broad” understanding of human security.