Human Security

The term “human security” was first employed in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report (HDR) of 1994, which argued for a “people-centric” concept of security and against the dichotomy of “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear.” This new understanding of security replaced the traditional focus of conflict between states, protection of state borders, and military solutions to security problems. It also recognized the interdependence between security and development. The HDR proposed a broad, multidimensional conceptualization of human security comprising economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security, and political security. Since then, human security has become an all-encompassing emancipatory concept of security at the individual (rather than state) level, addressing the many causes of human vulnerability including armed conflict, human rights violations, environmental challenges, and resource deprivation. It thus changed the security discourse and opened the “black box” of states. In 1999, Japan established the UN Trust Fund for Human Security to operationalize the human security concept. Later, Canada joined the initiative and helped to establish the Human Security Network and, in 2000, the independent Commission on Human Security (CHS) to address questions like the root causes of conflicts and the human protection and development of people. The CHS’s mantra was that states must produce sustainable economic growth and target the very poor through providing education, health services, and employment. Unsurprisingly, this broad definition of human security produced a backlash since it challenged the relative importance of “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want.” Some asserted that the human security approach lacked conceptual rigor and was difficult to operationalize. In 2003, the CHS published their report, Human Security Now: Protecting and Empowering People, which reaffirmed the broad definition of human security. In 2004, a Human Security Unit was created in the UN Secretariat of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The same year, the UN Secretary-General convened the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, which highlighted the interconnected and diverse threats to human security and called upon the international community to address them. A significant debate at the academic and policy levels ensued, discussing the viability of the concept as well as its political relevance. However, many UN member states, especially the so-called major powers (e.g., the United States), only played lip service to what was becoming an emerging norm in international security affairs.