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?