The Concept of Human Security *
Walter Lichem

To better understand the new focus on the human being in the multiple sectors of public policy, it may be helpful to look at the structural changes that have taken place in our societies and which have been characterised by an increasing self-determination and empowerment of the citizen. These changes can be best described as "de-verticalization." They have been accompanied by a growing horizontalization of societal relationships. Vertical structures of command and authority, both with regard to the society and in the economy, have been replaced by market-like horizontal interactions. Democratic political decision-making gives the citizen as a voter a similar freedom of choice to his/her preferences about consumption and production. While the individual citizen became an independent actor, he or she also became increasingly directly affected and- in some cases - a victim of such interactions.

The policies focusing at empowering the citizen through human, civil, social, cultural , and economic rights have been marked by a new image of the human being. The concept of equity among citizens became a natural postulate in a new understanding of community. This new focus on the human being sooner or later also had to rearticulate the security agenda.

It might also be of interest to look at the political origins of the concept of Human Security. On an international level, it appears to have been a consequence of the new partnership that evolved over the past three decades between international organizations, governments, and civil society in the new forms of global governance. Concretely, the concept of Human Security entered our international discourse in the context of the preparation of the World Social Summit in Copenhagen . In 1993 and 1994, the Society for International Development (SID), launched the concept of Human Security in conferences in Bonn and later in Ottawa. By 1994, Human Security had become the theme for the UNDO Human Development Report. Also, during the Stockholm meeting of the UNDP Study Program in 1994, several papers- in particular, by Mahbub Ul Haq, Inge Kaul, and Roberto Savio- dealt with the new challenges on the security front. The gist of these papers was to recognize the intimate interrelationship existing between Human Security and human development. The Human Development Report put it very clearly: there can be no human development without Human Security and vice versa.

The Human Security Report of 2000 added another important dimension to the understanding of Human Security and of human development: human rights as an indispensable precondition for both human development-and also for Human Security.

To help understand the construction for the international discourse on Human Security-which ultimately led to the creation of the Human Security Network of Foreign Ministers-the Ottawa process toward the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on their Destruction has provided important precedents. The negotiations revealed the new potential for global policy making through an partnership between like-minded smaller and medium-sized good-citizen countries on the one hand and civil society on the other. The countries who successfully carried the concept and the negotiations toward a ban of anti-personnel landmines succeeded in the objective because they were supported by an international alliance of civil society which carried the issue into the local political processes. Assisted by Princess Diana, civil society activist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams succeeded in getting even President Bill Clinton in his State of the Union Message to dream about the moment when children could walk the fields without being afraid of having their legs torn off.

Now, what is Human Security? At times it is maintained that Human Security is a very narrow and precise concept, while at other times, people cherish the rather broad definiton. Currently nine main categories of Human Security are listed; two more than were mentioned in the 1994 Human Development Report: All these components of Human Security are interdependent. And, interestingly enough, all these categories do have an a priori global dimension. Mahbub Ul Haq, in his paper for the Stockholm meeting, gave as an example for the new globality of Human Security the very local phenomenon of poverty, whose consequences may travel globally, not halting at traditional borders. It has been underlined that the basic concept of Human Security was already present at the creation of the Charter of the United Nations. The U.S. Secretary of State, reporting back form San Francisco, expressed this as follows:

“The matter of peace has to be fought on two fronts. The first front is the security front where victory spells "freedom from fear." The second is the economic and social front where victory means "freedom from want." Only victory on both fronts can assure the world an enduring peace. No provision in the UN can be written into the Charter which will enable the Security Council to make the world secure from war if men and women have no security in their homes and in their jobs...”

It is interesting to note that the evolution of the agenda of the Security Council reflects precisely this understanding of security, articulated half a century before. An analysis of the activities of the Security Council during the year 2000 reveals that only a limited portion of its agenda dealt with security issues between states. The majority of crises occur today within national boundaries. While during the First World War, only 10% of the victims were civilians, that number has risen to more than 85% in current conflicts. At the same time, there has been a growing recognition that human insecurity may well lead to conflict and warfare. With a view toward better understanding policy options of conflict prevention, the Security Council has turned to such issued of Human Security as poverty in Africa, AIDS, women and peace and security, and civilians and children in armed conflict.

Publications by the United Nations have correctly stressed the interdependence existing between the empowerment of citizens through a system of human rights, their well-being through human development, and their freedom from fear through Human Security. I would like to suggest, however, that the human rights angle might merit some broadening. There is no doubt that en effective political and societal culture of human rights is an essential ingredient of societal development. However this may be only one of the two key elements of the governance capacity in a society. What about the capacities of the state? This is an area that will require more attention, new concepts of policy, and new development strategies. In fact, it may well be that the new discourse on development will focus on “governance building” as a key strategy of development. The Human Development Report of UNDP for the year 2002 will take a first look at the role of governance in development strategies.

It is interesting to note, if we look back at the history of development theory, that we first focused on economic parameters such as the gross national product. The approach taken by the Human Development Report moved beyond a purely economic understanding of development and-in my opinion very rightly-defined development as a process of change toward a broadening of the spectrum of choice. In other words, development was understood as a process of change toward freedom.

Over the past 10 years, there has been an ever-more audible call for “good governance” as a precondition for development. While some governments may still shy away from this concept, civil society in many developing countries has been claiming it with evermore insistence. What is “governance” as compered with “government”? And how does it relate to Human Security?

Government may be defined as a process of goal formulation and norm setting (law-making) and implementation in a rather vertical process. Governance, in turn, is a broader concept that is based on a horizontal partnership and collaboration between government and other stakeholders, including civil society, the business community, the institutions of knowledge production, and the creative cultural sectors in a society. Governance thus recognizes what there are two important and indispensable pillars, the state and its structures on the one hand and society on the other. There can be no governance without a properly functioning state. But there can also be no governance without a society capable of partnership and a sharing of certain responsibility in public space. The fact is that there has been no development, no investment in the economy or in the society of a country where there is bad governance, corruption, and insecurity of both citizens and entrepreneurs.

In short, Human Security is unthinkable without its governance context, from the empowerment of the citizens through a culture of human rights and democratic elections processes, to fair and equitable government bound by the rule of law. Yet, do we really have strategies for governance-building?

To ensure Human Security, both dimensions-state-building and societal development-must be properly developed. At the last meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Human Security Network in Petra the Jordanian Minister Khatib rightly stressed the fact that we cannot discuss Human Security unless we are aware of the needs for a well-functioning state structure. Societal development, in turn, includes human rights education and learning, a sense of citizenship, community-building and the development of a capacity of both the individual citizen and of society at large to deal with otherness, with diversity.

It is worthwhile to note that the United Nations currently has no organizational unit that would be responsible for programs of governance-building. There are diverse programs and organizations that deal with different aspects of governance-building, aspects such as human rights, criminal justice, organized crime, etc. Yet there is no institutional provision for implementing such development policies.

I conclude this introduction into the concept and policies of Human Security with a reference to the focus of Austria’s policy with regard to Human Security. Austria considers governance-building as a priority concern. And we see human rights education and learning across all societies, cultures, and identities as a key element in a proactive strategy toward the development of sustainable Human Security in our societies.

*) Taken from “Human Security and Science and Technology”, proceedings of the International Seminar held in Laxenburg, Austria, 10 October 2001, organized by the Permanent Mission of Chile

With the friendly permission of the Permanent Mission of Chile

Dr Walter Lichem, Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Austria