About human security

The goal of national security is the defense of the state from external threats. The focus of human security, by contrast, is the protection of individuals. Secure states do not automatically mean secure peoples. Protecting citizens from foreign attack is certainly a necessary condition for the security of individuals, but it is not a sufficient one. Indeed, during the past century, far more people have been killed by their own governments than by armies from abroad. The term human security is now widely used to describe the complex of interrelated threats associated with international war, civil war, genocide, and the displacement of populations. Human security means, at minimum, freedom from violence, and from the fear of violence. Human security and national security should be – and often are – mutually reinforcing. But this is not always the case. Human security can be threatened both by weak states which allow warlords and militias to flourish, and by strong states which themselves commit abuses such as torture and summary execution. Everyone who uses the term human security agrees that its primary goal is the protection of individuals. But which threats individuals should be protected from remains contested. The " broad " concept of human security, first outlined in the 1994 Human Development Report from the United Nations Development Programme, argues that human security rests on two pillars: freedom from want and freedom from fear. The broader view of human security includes food security, adequate shelter, security from poverty, and sometimes from " threats to human dignity. " Its proponents rightly argue that hunger, disease, and natural disasters kill far more people than war, genocide, and terrorism combined. And these threats are often interrelated. The " narrow " concept of human security focuses on freedom from violence. This includes criminal as well as political violence, for the boundary between the two is not always easy to draw. Is there any practical difference between a criminal gang which grows narcotics and guards its crop with guns, and insurgents who grow drugs to finance their rebellion? Just where does the boundary lie between an off-duty soldier who sexually assaults someone, and a deliberate military campaign of rape, which can be a war crime? Th e s e t wo a p p r o a ch e s to human security are both people-centered, and are complementary rather than contradictory. But because the " broad …