I34048
ZHENG YAN
Comment Paper( focusing on human security)
For human beings, everyone is chasing a sense of security in their lives, which is
a feeling of peaceful and away from threats. This kind of feeling will not be
reached through the education from other people or the promotion of national
organizations, but exist within ourselves involuntarily, when we feel ourselves
being secured by the environment we are living in. After the end of cold war,
security question began to undergo some changes. Instead of maintaining its
focus on military aspects, there is a need to analyze the non-military aspects of
security. This is because the nature of warfare also changed—the nature of the
conflict changed from inter-state conflict to intra-state conflict. With the change
security studies also started to make a shift and looked for new areas to explore.
This effort gave birth to a newer notion in security studies. （Paulami Sanyal，
2010）In 1948, three years later after the ending of the Second World War, in the
memory of people all over the world, they had experienced bloody slaughter
during the first and second World War, which is regard as an extremely severe
violation of human dignity and human rights. The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights was passed and it put “human security” as the focus of this
document. But the relative formal concept of human security was drew by
Dr. Mahbub
ul
Haq in
the United
Nations
Development
Programme's
1994 Human Development Report which regards human security as an emerging
paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities, and people’s interests or the
interests of humanity is the focus in conducting national and international issues .
The UNDP’s definition of human security can be expanded into seven important
dimensions, they are economic security, food security, health security,
environmental security, personal security, community security and political
security. There are also a narrow conception and a broad conception put forward.
The narrow formulation focuses on threats of violence, particularly organized
political violence. And the broad conception is concerned with human
vulnerability overall, and therefore encompasses all forms of threats from all
sources. This includes, in addition to the part in the narrow concept, some other
forms of violence, as well as threats of natural disasters, disease, environmental
degradation,
hunger,
unemployment
and
economic
downturn.(Sakiko
Fukuda-Parr and Carol Messineo,2011)
However, the concept of human security is relatively new compared to the
traditional concept of national security, and also it has raise hot debate on the
international base. The traditional security studies didn’t make clear distinguishi
between national security, military security and strategic study, so that the
security study was defined as a study of using and controlling of the military
power. In other words, the traditional security study equals national security
with military security.(Cai Yudai and Han Weien,2008) According to the
traditional approach to national security, states are regarded as the most
powerful actors in the international system and there is no higher authority to
regulate their relations with each other. The main theoretical support is the
neo-realist theory, which are rather pessimistic assumptions. Neo-realists
believes in relative gains rather than absolute gains, which means that states
have to seek for security at the expense of other countries, there must be some
one lose in the competition. They claim that states are anarchic, so that they will
inevitably develop military capabilities to defend themselves. And because a lack
of trust, states must always be on guard to their neighbors.(John Baylis,2008).
Domestically, a state must make sure the safety of its people’s life and wealth,
when facing other states, it must gain enough power to prevent the invasion and
damage regarding its territory, sovereignty and citizens.
Being contrast with
the realist, the traditional state-centered concept of security which has been
dominant in international relations for a long time, the concept of human
security place human beings at the center of security and state is no longer in a
privileged state over people. As Mahbub ul Haq said: “the world is entering anew
era in which the very concept of security of people, not just territory. Security of
individuals, not just nations. Security through development, not through arms.
Security of all the people everywhere- in their home, in their jobs, in their streets,
in their communities, in their environment.”(Mahbub ul Haq,1995). Human
beings who seek for secure in daily lives, instead of states , are the first victims as
the result of insecurity. But they have been ignored under the mainstream
thinking of regarding states as the security target. Because to most people, war is
not a daily life affair, the significance of security actually lies in the exemption of
disease, unemployment, lacking of food and environment damage.
When analyzing international security issues, it is important for us to utilize the
concept of human security instead of national security, Human security has
already been applied with many important international affairs , including
economic, environmental and social themes. Actors who have a role in providing
human security include the state, but also international organizations,
non-governmental organizations and some social communities , in contrast to
the idea of national security where the state has a central power to protect its
people. In reality, in many countries, especially developing countries, state often
fails to fulfill its security obligations, even in many cases the state is a source of
threat to its own people. Here I use the civil war of the Republic of Colombia as
an example.
After the establish of the Republic of Colombia, though it has got out of the
colonial rule of the Spanish, the breaking up of the domestic politics lead the
country entering into a long-term civil war, which was the biggest armed conflict
in south America. The inappropriate economic policy is one of the main cause of
continual civil wars. Because the government didn’t make an efficient correction
of the domestic economic structure, the mode of production and export of
domestic
materials
unemployment
has
underwent
reached
recession
several
gradually,
the
millions.(Colombia
number
of
Unemployment
Rate,1990) Many people in rural areas had to work for drug traffickers or join
local rebellion organizations, in order to make a living. Every year, the financial
loss due to the violence activity and armed conflicts is about 10 trillion US
Dollars. There were also nearly 10000 casualties and huge amount of people
became destitute and homeless because of the war. 67% of the total population
of Colombia was under the poverty line, children were left uncultivated due to
the neglected school education.( Human Development Report,2006). As this case
shows, if the nature of the war transfers from the external threat to internal
threat, there will also be an obvious change of the standard to define whether
security exists or being practiced. The reason why the earlier national security
gained central status is because the nation and its constituents both face external
threats. However, in the above case, the war didn’t pose danger on the state’s
existence, instead the citizens became the target of threatening. To be more
explicit, the relationship between state and war is not as frequent as before,
adversely, whether human security is ensured will be the key element to
influence the safety of the state.
References
Paulami Sanyal,2010. Human Security vs National Security: A Case Study of
Dantewada
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Carol Messineo,2011.Human Security: A Critical View of
the literature
Cai Yudai and Han Weien,2008, From State To People: The Analysis of the
Conception of Human Security
John Baylis,2008, International and Global Security
Mahbub ul Haq,1995, Reflections on Human Development. New York: Oxford
University Press
Colombia Unemployment Rate,1990. (March 31, 1990-August 31, 2007)
http://www.globalfinancialdata.com/index.php3?action=detailedinfo
&id
=9275
Human Development Report ,2006(Country Fact Sheets-Colombia),
http://
hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_CO
L.html