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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
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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?