For our series of Stories of People- and Planet-Centred Cooperation, we interviewed Zsófia Hacsek of Coventry University about the origins, meaning and impact of the Human Security paradigm. Over three decades, this centring of people and planet has revolutionised thinking about security, but also experienced a backlash from those committed to the ‘national security’ concerns of ‘sovereign’ states.
At the outset of Rethinking Security’s Alternative Security Review, as a member of the Coventry University research team I carried out a literature review on definitions of security, looking at the debates within academic literature on security. This charted the journey of human security as a concept within the international community from its inception after the Cold War to its inclusion in some of the most definitive ideas shaping security as we face unprecedented climate breakdown. The success of human security lies in the way it has re-shaped international approaches to different problems, providing an analytical framework for centring ordinary people and the environment in international relations.
A turn towards the human after the Cold War
It was the end of the Cold War which opened up space in in academia and the international community for new thinking on security. As the imminent threat of nuclear destruction lessened at the end of the 1980s, it was possible to concentrate on other issues. In the interviews with ‘security’ professionals that we carried out later in the Alternative Security Review, interviewees emphasised what a huge mental shift this was for those working on security issues.
This paradigm shift saw security take on a broader meaning, beyond the role of the military addressing threats to the state. Within the UN this led to the adoption of human security as a concept around which to frame new definitions of security. Advocates of human security said that, by placing ordinary people at the centre of thinking on security, security should have a universal, interdependent and inclusive approach. It also identified seven elements that should be considered to make this a reality: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political security.
Built on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ aspiration for “a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want”, the three aspirations of human security are freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom to live in dignity.
The institutionalisation of human security
Human security was introduced to the UN at a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conference in 1994, via the report, UNDP Human Development Report: New Dimensions of Human Security. The report defined human security and mainstreamed the subject. A decade later, in 2004, the UN Trust Fund for Human Security (UNTFHS) was set up within the UN Secretary General’s Executive Office and a network of thirteen states established as the ‘Human Security Network’ to push forward human security issues within the UN.[1] As Secretary General of the UN between 1997 and 2006, Kofi Annan helped provide much of this institutional support.
With the adoption of Agenda 2030 in 2015 and the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), human security offered an analytical lens through which to approach these goals, centring the voices of ordinary people in making them a reality.
The human security work carried out as a result of the UNTFHS is a long list of locally based projects to address root causes of violence and fear; to build partnerships for economic resilience between people, businesses and authorities; or to deepen ecological sustainability in areas prone to natural disasters or extreme weather natural disasters.
More recently, the human security framework has been used by the UNDP to centre the problem of climate and nature breakdown. The 2022 special report, New Threats to Human Security in the Anthropocene: Demanding Greater Solidarity, highlights the way in which humans are making the world more insecure in the face of climate breakdown and provides an updated framework for thinking about what human security means as we contend with this unprecedented existential threat. To align thinking on security by addressing what is causing climate change, with a focus on global solidarity, is critical.
Balancing national and human security
Throughout its relatively short history, human security as a concept has been criticised for including “everything”, therefore making the concept impossible to define and, as a result, meaningless. This criticism typically comes from those who maintain a traditional approach to security – i.e. the primacy of ‘national security’ – exactly what advocates of human security hope to challenge by centring people and planet instead of states.
However, human security is not a concept that does away with the role of the state to protect its inhabitants from external (or internal) military or ‘traditional’ threats. On the contrary, state security has an important role to play but this should be at the service of the inhabitants and part of their overall safety and security, which covers other areas of equal importance to ordinary people, such as economic, health, food, political and community security.
In our initial review of literature on human security, two things became apparent about the success of human security in re-conceptualising security in the international community. Firstly, that economic security is key for addressing many kinds of insecurities and, thus, encouraging states to adopt measures like the SDGs is hugely important.
Secondly, when security for ordinary people is conceptualised, it is not only the state that has a role to play. Some issues affect communities and some are global, so there are many levels of involvement in creating security. The state has a role in supporting and enabling communities to create inclusive security, as opposed to dictating what security means. States must also make effective use of diplomacy and multilateral dialogue as part of an international community to address global issues, such as climate change.
An alternative paradigm to ‘national security’
As with a number of framing concepts or areas of work that began after the Cold War, the underlying success of human security is that it has developed a new norm within the international community. The concept still competes with ‘national security’ for prominence and at times, acceptance, within international relations. However, the vision for the wellbeing of people and planet, founded on ethical principles, remains institutionalised with the UN; acting as a powerful cooperative counter-narrative to competitive and coercive militarism.
Although small in comparison to other areas of work within the UN, the programmes funded by the UNTFHS have had positive measurable impacts on the lives, communities and environments of people across the world, enhancing their security in ways that a ‘national security’ approach can never achieve.
[1] The current network members are Austria, Chile, Costa Rica, Greece, Ireland, Jordan, Mali, Norway, Panama, Slovenia, Switzerland and Thailand, with South Africa participating as an observer.
The views and opinions expressed in posts on the Rethinking Security blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the network and its broader membership.
For this article, Zsófia Hacsek was interviewed by Joanna Frew.
Image Credit: United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), 2022.
