Post on 18-Jan-2018
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WHAT IS HUMAN SECURITY?
1)‘I was young and travelled alone, not knowing the road:
I felt rich when I found a comrade.Man is man’s delight.’
2) ‘Homo homini lupus’
HUMAN SECURITY…
• Is not state-based or purely military• Makes the human being the measure of
problems and goal of solutions• Automatically multiplies dimensions• Brings in non-state actors on all sides• Should also empower the individual (but
can be ‘top-down’)
H.S. AS THEME OF CURRENT STUDY AND POLICY
• Used mainly by the North about the South (What is our own equivalent??)
• Argument for intervention - qualifying sovereignty (‘responsibility to protect’,UN 2005)
• Can include protecting life and quality of life (human and political rights)
• An approach to analysing life risks and resource priorities (eg E Sköns)
SOME ISSUES
• Which norms? Variable factors of life and death, subjective differences
• Focus on violence (many types) or other causes of suffering + death?
• Include arms issues (which?) + laws of war?• ‘Humanitarian ops’ with h.content and
methods, or h. goals?• Risk of forgetting ‘human’ issues of traditional
war and defence
SOME PRACTICAL DETAILS
• Is the human security rationale the strongest for intervening - but why are so few operations guided by it?
• Should an h. op. just ‘heal’, or reform?• Other tools and methods? What is the
North’s overall aim and impact?• How much individual self-help??
AFTER THE BREAK
• We are focussing on different ways that independent experts can define and document human security - to illustrate the breadth, the intellectual interest, but also the ambiguity and possible confusion surrounding the concept
THE CANADIAN ‘HUMAN SECURITY REPORT’
• Brainchild of Andy Mack, originally at Univ of British Columbia in Vancouver
• Used very reputable conflict data (from Uppsala, cf www.ucdp.uu.se) + stressed decline in conflicts + deaths
• Criticism of conclusions; inspired Brzoska and Sköns bits in SIPRI YB07
NOW COMPARE MACK AND SKÖNS APPROACHES
• First, any similarities???
CHOICE OF STATISTICS
• Which ones do they base their analysis on? Taken from where?
• Compare/contrast the treatment and priority each of them gives to - armed conflict - terrorism - problems of development
Lessons/Recommendations
• What audience are these reports addressing? What actions or policy changes would each of them logically point to?
Your Assessment
• Which of the two treatments do you find personally more sympathetic and convincing?
• Which is more useful as a guide for governments + institutions?
• And which for ordinary people?• Do you find something missing in both?