2.2 Definition of Terms
2.2.3 Human Security
The word security originates from the Latin word ‘securitas’ which means “freedom from care, concern, or composure” (Arends, 2008: 263). According to the 2011 edition of the Oxford Dictionary, security connotes the state of feeling safe, stable, and free from fear, threat or anxiety (Oxford Dictionary, 2011). By extension, human security may be defined as security with humanity as its focus. Highlighting the human core of the notion of ‘human security’, Alkire (2003) posits that:
The objective of human security is to safeguard the vital core of all human lives from critical pervasive threats, in a way that is consistent with long-term human fulfilment. Human security takes its shape from the human being: the vital core that is to be protected. Institutions that undertake to protect human security will not be able to promote every aspect of human well-being. But at very least they must protect this core of people’s lives (Alkire, 2003: 2).
Human security emerged at the end of the Cold War, having been informed by transformations in the global political arena, as well as a new awareness on the global nature of emergent security threats (Tsai, 2009). Bajpai observes that the utility of human security in policy circles was informed by the emergence of new challenges which scope extended beyond statist precincts envisaged in classical neorealist paradigms of national security focusing on states’ strategic, military and territorial security (Bajpai, 2000).
The concept came into the global policy limelight following the publication of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Human Development Report in 1994, in which human security was defined as:
…[S]afety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease, and repression as well as protection from sudden and harmful disruptions in the patterns of daily life – whether in homes, in jobs or in communities’, and as the totality of economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security and political security (UNDP, cited in Dokos, 2008: 68).
According to Paris (2001), the aftermath of the Second World War and the Cold War informed the need to re-examine the focus of conventional security. Hence, the observation in the UNDP report, that the concept of security “has for too long been interpreted narrowly: as security of territory from external aggression, or as protection of national interests in foreign policy or as global security from the threat of nuclear holocaust...Forgotten were the
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legitimate concerns of ordinary people who sought security in their daily lives” (Paris, 2001:
89).
With the publication also coinciding with the semi-centennial of the United Nations (UN), a review of security was considered timely in ushering in a new phase in the United Nations mandate based on the understanding that the world will never be at peace unless people have security in their daily lives. This view was informed by increase number of conflicts within, rather than between nations—a pointer to the ineffectiveness of statist security paradigms of security relying on the acquisition and use of arms military hardware (UNDP, 1994: 1-2).
Concerns about the implication of intrastate conflicts in the post-Cold War era were captured by the former United Nations Secretary-General, Koffi Annan who argued that “in the wake of [such intra-state] conflicts, a new understanding of the concept of security is evolving, once synonymous with the defence of territory from external attack, the requirements of security today have come to embrace the protection of communities and individuals from internal violence”.30
Annan stated further that the building blocks of human and national security are interrelated, encompassing the reduction of poverty, economic growth, conflict prevention, the protection of the freedom of future generations to inherit a healthy natural environment, general freedom from want, and fear. He sees human security as a concept which in its broadest sense, embraces far more than the absence of violent conflict, one which encompasses human rights, good governance, access to education and health, and ensuring that each individual has opportunities and choices to fulfil his or her potential.31 With this understanding, the 1994 report expanded the scope of security concerns from its traditional statist preoccupation, to accommodate emerging security realities of the post-Cold War era (Shinoda, 2004).
The 1994 report identified seven core elements of human security namely: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security and political security (IIHR, 2010).32
30 Koffi, Annan, at the presentation of the United Nations Millennium Report, August 22, 2001.
31 Kofi Annan at an International Workshop on Human Security in Mongolia, May 8-10, 2000.
32 Paris (2001) explains each of these elements accordingly: (1) economic security entails freedom from poverty; food security i.e. availability of, and access to food; (2) health-relate security entails people’s access to adequate health care and protection from diseases; (3) environmental security refers to protection from environmental harm such as pollution, environmental degradation and depletion; (4) personal security entails physical safety from personal harms such as torture, war, criminal attacks, domestic violence, drug use, suicide, and even traffic accidents; (5) community security concerns the survival of traditional cultures and
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Table 1: Aspects of Human Security and Associated Threats Possible Types of Human Security Threats Type of Security Example of Main Threats
Economic security Persistent poverty, unemployment
Food security Hunger and famine
Health security Deadly infectious diseases, unsafe food, malnutrition, lack of access to basic health care.
Environmental security Environmental degradation, resource depletion, natural disasters, pollution
Personal security Physical violence, crime, terrorism, domestic violence, child labour
Community security Inter-ethnic, religious and other identity based tensions Political security Political repression, human right abuses
Source: IIHR (2010).
As a key item in the human security priority in the post-War era, environmental security occupies a prominent position in contemporary human Security agenda since the safety of human and other biological inhabitants is contingent upon ecological safety and environmental sustainability (Conley and Werz, 2012). Hence scholars agree that threats arising from climate change pose great risk to human security (Onuoha, 2010; Wyk, 2010). It is against this backdrop that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes human security as relating to the maintenance of the essential core of human lives, including the universal and culturally specific, material and non-material elements necessary for the pursuit of human interests and dignity. This condition, according to the IPCC, is met only “when vital cores of human lives are protected, and when people have the freedom and capacity to live with dignity” (IPCC, 2012: 15).
While contemporary discourse on climate change-conflict linkages derive from the broadening of security, awareness on the social impacts of environmental change dates as far back as 1798, having gained attention with the publication by Thomas Malthus (1766—1834) ethnic groups as well as the physical security of these groups; and (7) political security which entails the enjoyment of civil and political rights, and freedom from political oppression (Paris, 2001: 87-92).
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of his classic—Essay on the Principles of Population. Within the scope of the 20th century, Barnett (2007) traces current concern on climate change and human security to Falk’s 1971 publication—This Endangered Planet in which he argued that ‘‘there exists an inverse relationship between the interval of time available for adaptive change and the likelihood and intensity of violent conflict, trauma, and coercion accompanying the process of adaptation’’
(Barnett, 2007: 2). In effect, Falk posits that “the faster the rate of change, the less time to adapt, and the more dangerous climate change impacts are likely to be” (Falk, cited in Barnett, 2007: 7). This postulation may be considered as the first law of ecological politics providing historical template for the current global climate change mitigation and adaptation agenda.
Another important linkage between climate change and security is found in Lester Brown’s Redefining National Security published in 1977 which focused on the impact of climate change on food security. Brown’s main argument is that changes in the climate system presented challenges that were insurmountable through conventional military engagement, making disarmament and budgetary reallocations necessary for combating its security challenge (Barnett, 2007). By 1989, it was already accepted that ‘‘sustainable security...rests crucially on an active and creative participation in the politics of the world’s predicament [of environmental change]’’ (Barnett, 2007: 8). Similarly, the publication of the World Commission on Environment’s report titled Our Common Future in 1987 marked the official recognition of the term ‘environmental security’ (Dalby, 2009), heralding the replacement of global nuclear warfare security threats with environmental concerns since both possessed similar characteristics: their global scope and potential for devastating effects on security (Barnett, 2007).
In more contemporary connections, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change identified a range of climate-related hazards, especially those categorized as slow onset events. These events which include drought, desertification, sea level rise, land and forest degradation, loss of biodiversity, extreme increase in temperature, ocean acidification, glacial retreat, etc according to the agency constitutes threats to human livelihood and security (UNFCCC, 2012). Besides the 1994 report, the imperative of human security was further amplified at the Millennium Summit of September 2002, and with the publication of the United Nations Commission on Human Security report—Human Security Now in the
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following year. The report highlighted further the priority on humanity as the core of the new global security focus in its definition of human security. It states that:
[H]uman security means protecting the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfilment. Human security means protecting people from critical (severe) and pervasive (widespread) threats and situations. It means using processes that build on people’s strengths and aspirations. It means creating political, social, environmental, economic, military and cultural systems that together give people the building blocks of survival, livelihood and dignity (IIHR, 2010: n.p).
The Inter-American Institute for Human Rights identified Strategies of action which has shaped global policy on human security namely: protection and empowerment as promoted by the United Nations Commission on Human Security (UN-CHS). While protection entails strategies set up by states, NGOs and international organizations or agencies as well as the private sector, toward providing a shield against menaces that threaten people’s security, empowerment refers to strategies that enables people build resilience in the face of difficult situations and challenges including climate change (IIHR, 2010: n.p).
Elaborating further, the IIHR explains that protection on one hand, entails putting in place
“top-down” strategies which considers and accommodates threats that are beyond the control of individuals such as natural disasters, financial crises, and conflicts etc, as well as applying systematic and comprehensive preventive measures for their protection as a primary responsibility of the state to be enhanced by other actors such as civil society, international bodies and non-governmental organizations. On the other hand, empowerment implies a
“bottom-up” strategy towards developing the capacity among communities and individuals for making informed choices and taking effective actions by themselves, thereby realizing not only, their full potential, also becoming capable of participation in the design and implementation of solutions towards enhancing security for themselves and for other people.
The combination of protection and empowerment helps in realizing the people-centric and multi-sector principles of human security (See chart) (Ibid).
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Figure 2: Protection and empowerment as strategies for enhancing human security
Source: IIHR (2010).
The advocacy for human security has been challenged for its ubiquity and all-encompassing approach to security. Some studies argue that human security suffers for the infiniteness of its overambitious and all-encompassing objectives (Baechler, 1999; Shinoda, 2004; Human Security Initiative, 2011). Its criticism notwithstanding, human security remains at the heart of contemporary international policy and action on security.