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“Human Security: From Concept to Practice”
Text of Speech by Professor Amitav Acharya, UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance, America University and Global Director of Transnational Challenges and Emerging Nations Dialogue (TRANSCEND), to the "Informal Thematic Debate of the 65th Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Human Security", New York, 14 April 2011.
Madam Chair, Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The evolution of the concept of human security has gone through two phases. Between the 1990s and the early 2000s was a period of debate over its various meanings, whether human security was about freedom from fear, or freedom from want. Since then, the debate has entered a period of general agreement that human security is both, as well as freedom to live a life of dignity. It is not a matter of either this or either that. The important challenge is how to look for linkages between these various meanings.
But a common feature of all these debates and synthesis was that they were almost exclusively conducted by the academic community and policymakers of individual countries. Ironically, common people hardly got their voice through, even though human security is really about people’s security. What people – especially those who are real victims of human insecurity in their real lives- think of the human security concept was hardly factored-in.
This bias was partly because these debates took place in academia and in intergovernmental institutions and forums, but not in the field. It was also because we did not do micro-research, or case studies in actual conflict areas. Instead, we focused on the broad picture.
Now we have some data to correct this bias. Recently, the Asian Dialogue Society a regional network of academics, policy leaders and concerned citizens and friends of Asia, in partnership with the School of International Studies at American University, and the Madhyam Foundation, a non-profit group in India, and funded by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation of Japan, carried out a study of human security in two regions of India – Northeast India and Orissa. Both these areas have lots of human insecurity – poverty, insurgency and conflict. Our findings, which has just been published as a book entitled, Human Security: From Concept to Practice (Singapore and London: World Scientific, 2011), edited by Amitav Acharya, Subrat K. Singhdeo, and M. Rajaretnam, are important not only for the practical aspects of human security, but also for rethinking the concept itself. Let me list four of these findings:
1. Poor people fear most. In Northeast India, we found that 76.1 per cent of the people who have an annual income of 1000 rupees or less felt they were “compelled to live in anxiety?”, compared to 60.4 per cent of the people who had an income level of 10,000 rupees or more. The clear implication is that poverty and human insecurity are inextricably linked.
2. States and state policies are also a source on human insecurity. One cause of fear is operations by the military or security forces. For example, when asked whether they feared the militants or the military (security forces) more, 38.5 per cent of respondents in the North East India cases said they were equally afraid of both, a higher percentage than those who said they were more afraid of the militants and those who said they feared the security forces more. Another factor that came out clearly is bad governance, including government corruption. These findings go to the heart of a very important question about human security, which is security for the people, rather than security for states.
3. Political and socio-economic factors behind conflict are closely linked. Conflict is caused by a variety of sources. The three most important sources of popular dissatisfaction contributing to conflict (hence sources of threats to human security) that came out in both North East India and Orissa are: corruption in government, unemployment, and poverty and lack of basic amenities.
4. People want dialogue. More than two-thirds of the people – including people who sympathize with the insurgents- interviewed said they prefer dialogue to extreme solutions such as outright suppression or outright secession. They prefer governments to talk to insurgents, rather than strengthen military operations, or grant independence to them. Moreover, we people want the dialogue to be inclusive, involving the representatives of the larger civil society. This finding is significant for the UN’s efforts to find effective solutions to the problem of internal conflicts leading to state break-ups. The key demand of groups fighting governments may not be to break away, but to have their human security respected and fulfilled. Responding to internal conflicts with this understanding mind will go a long way in addressing the challenge of state failure today.
This also leads me to talk briefly about responses to challenges to human security: how to devise effective policy tools to improve the prospects for human security around the world.
Mr Obasanjo has earlier urged the UN to develop a human security index. The foundation for such an index has already been laid in the project and book Human Security: From Concept to Practice, which I have mentioned earlier. In our project, we propose three policy tools: (1) Human Security Governance Index and Ranking; (2) Human Security Mapping in Conflict Zones; and (3) Human Security Impact Assessment. While limitation of time does not allow me to go into details, let me mention a few key points about each of these.
(1) Human Security Governance Index and Ranking: We now have Human Development Reports (under the auspices of the United Nations Development Program) for countries and increasingly states/provinces within countries, our innovation has been is to extend it to regions and districts (within states/provinces) to allow for more micro-studies and of the local context in which human security assessments and policies must be carried out. Moreover, we include governance, not just threats, in our measurement, since bad governance is a fundamental cause of human insecurity and good governance is key to ensuring the realization of human security.
(2) Human Security Mapping in Conflict Zones: People who live in the constant shadow of conflict may have more specific and acute perceptions of human security challenges and needs than people who live in relative peace and order. Hence, a methodology for relating to people in conflict zones and analyzing their concerns and attitudes is vital. Our project presents such a template.
(3) Human Security Impact Assessment (HSIA): We have environmental impact assessments for some time, but it is time to extend it and cover the entire gamut of human security concerns. Some projects intended for promoting development, such as large infrastructure projects undertaken by donor agencies, multilateral institutions like the World Bank, national/provincial governments, and corporations, no matter how well-intentioned, may end up aggravating insecurity and conflict in the area. A HSIA enables governments, foreign donors, multilateral institutions and corporations, to better anticipate the impact of their projects not just on development and environment, but also on security as a whole, from a broader perspective. And by necessity, such assessments have to be localized and micro-analytic. Our project has provided the template and methodology for such a HSIA, which can be easily adapted to all parts of the world.
None of this is to belittle the value of broad brush measurements of human security, such as the Human Security Report, produced under the leadership of Professor Andrew Mack. This is becoming an indispensable source of knowledge about human security. What I urge is for the international community, including the UN, to compliment the broad picture studies with micro-studies, which give you a better chance to incorporate the people’s own perception of the meaning and scope of human security. My call is for allowing the civil society and the common people to get involved in the process of human security research and policy dialogues.
To sum up, the overall conclusion that one might reach from our study is that to an overwhelming extent, people see human security in a holistic way, not in a piecemeal manner. So the lines drawn between “freedom from fear”, “freedom from want”, and “freedom to live a life with dignity”, are easily blurred in people’s perceptions of human security, what it means to them and how it is challenged and how it is to be promoted. This is the finding that we need to bring into our ongoing efforts to reach a common understanding of human security and correct the bias that I mentioned earlier. And while we derive these insights from case studies in India, it is my strong belief that they hold true everywhere.
I conclude by observing that just as the concept of human security itself is people-centric, so should be research and dissemination efforts about it. If the UN, the Human Security trust Fund and individual countries are to effectively promote human security, they might want to invest more on research and dissemination from “bottom-up”, by increasing the engagement of common people and the civil society.
Thank you very much for your attention.
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Summary of Question and Answer Session: Responses Offered by Prof Acharya
Responding to a variety of comments and questions posed by various national delegations participating in the debate, Prof Acharya made the following points with reference to questions that touched upon the main points of his speech:
1. While it is important to take note of the people’s perception of human security at the local level, “local” should not lead to cultural particularism and relativism. The local context should not be used to exclude or delegitimize good ideas about, and approaches to, human security that may have a broader relevance. The challenge is how to construct a broader definition and understanding of human security from different local contexts, and how to draw out the broader relevance of local perspectives for other localities/regions and the world at large.
2. To those delegations who have raised concerns about linking human security with responsibility to protect, and who insist that any definition of human security must respect national sovereignty and territorial integrity and should not allow foreign intervention, I should say that these objections are not new but are important and require a sensitive response. My own position is that human security should not be pursued through military intervention. At the same time, sovereignty is itself a changing concept, and most countries, both from the West and the South, are realizing that there are legitimate ways of making sovereignty more flexible, on the basis of UN’s authority to which all nations can agree.
3. It should be possible for the global community to pursue and promote human security without the use or threat of use of military force. Human security is not the same as humanitarian intervention, or the Responsibility to Protect” idea. But this does not mean states do not have a responsibility to secure their own citizens. To quote the words of one delegate from the developing world (Brazil), “Human security should be a primary responsibility of the State”. In other words, all states have some obligations and responsibilities to fulfill the human security needs of all their citizens, and ensure their freedom from fear, freedom from want, and freedom to live life with dignity. I endorse this principle wholeheartedly.
4. Those countries that feel strongly that the definition of human security should be inclusive and not be dominated by Western nations or intellectuals, should not hesitate to put forward their own definitions of human security and approaches to promote it, just like Thailand has done. Indeed, all states should be invited to offer their own ideas and definitions of human security before we can reach a common understanding.
5. Those who argue that only the governments of a country should have the sole responsibility to decide what constitute a threats to the human security their own citizens, I would say that while this principle is broadly acceptable, they should also, as good citizens of the international community and the world, do their best to make their determination consistent with the principles of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and other universally accepted norms and practices.
6. To those who are worried that human security might lead to securitization of socio-economic issues and might even lead to an expanded role of the armed forces and security services in civilian affairs, I would agree that this is a very valid concern. We need to watch out for such potential abuses and ensure that human security policies are carried out within a broad democratic context and with the active involvement of the civil society.
7. To the question, how to differentiate human security from human rights, I would respond that human rights is a legal concept, or has legal standing under domestic and international law, where human security is still a political notion, awaiting legalization and institutionalization. Moreover, where as human rights is often referred to as individual rights, human security is peoples’ security, and has a somewhat more social and communitarian connotation. This means one can apply it to a different cultures and societies, including those societies which claim to have a more communitarian ethic compared to Western individualism. Hence, I would say that human security is a broader notion that subsumes human rights and can be promoted in tandem with human rights.
8. My concluding thoughts are that the realization of human security is a mutual learning process. All learning is social, and the most effective ways of learning are voluntary not imposed. Broad and universal ownership of the concept is vital. Learning takes time and is achieved through dialogue and mutual understanding. Let the dialogue begin.
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Extracts From: “IN WORLD OF UNPREDICTABLE THREATS, EXPANDED CONCEPT OF SECURITY NEEDED TO ENCOMPASS BROAD RANGE OF CONDITIONS ENDANGERING SURVIVAL, DIGNITY, GENERAL ASSEMBLY TOLD”.
Available at: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/ga11072.doc.htm
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Today’s thematic debate followed those held in May 2008, May 2010, and July 2010, and aimed to contribute to discussions on a notion of human security, as outlined in resolution 64/291 (2010), which called for continued consideration of the topic. With that in mind, the first of two interactive panels — on “A possible approach for defining human security” — heard a lively debate on the idea that human security represented a point of convergence for the United Nations’ most important goals of peace, security and human development.
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The panel featured presentations by: Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria and Founder of the Centre for Human Security; Frene Ginwala, former Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa, and Member of the Commission on Human Security; Jennifer Leaning, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at Harvard School of Public Health; and Amitav Acharya, Professor of International Relations and Chair of the ASEAN Studies Center at American University. Margareta Wahlström, Assistant Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, moderated the discussion.
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Mr. ACHARYA said that from the mid-2000s onwards, there had been a convergence of views regarding the definition of human security and it was now a question of prioritizing its many strands. Ironically, the people who were at the receiving end of threats to human security were left out of a largely academic debate. While micro-studies or targeted case studies had largely been avoided, his two studies of two poor conflict-affected regions of India had broken ground. Among their findings was that people who were poorest lived in the most fear: 76 per cent of those with 1,000 rupees or less felt a great deal of anxiety, while only 60 per cent of those making more than 10,000 rupees felt that much anxiety. He had also found that the policies of the State — including specific initiatives carried out to address human security — had the potential to create human insecurity. For example, people feared the military as much as the militant groups fomenting the local insurgency. Among other things, that meant that States bore some responsibility for human insecurity, he said.
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Mr. ACHARYA said, in response to question about the need for a detailed definition, that such a definition was unnecessary. If the price of a definition was the lowest common denominator, or one that limited imagination and approach, it was preferable not to have one. While progress had been made on human security, it had been uneven. For example, he heard very little about human security in Washington, D.C., even from an administration with a very human face. At the same time, it was not accepted that people were at the heart of national security. He agreed it would be hard to resolve the role of the State, which played an ambiguous role and sometimes compromised human security. Thus, in his view, some criteria must be laid down to identify what activities and polices were acceptable and what were not. He was not arguing, however, for intervention. While a local focus was important, it should not be used to exclude or delegitimize relevant concepts.
He further stressed that, because the creation of a definition was a political process, the world’s Governments must make that effort rights here in the General Assembly. But, if a common working understanding, rather than a concrete definition, was the only possible outcome that would also be acceptable.
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Mr. ACHARYA said that, despite initial skepticism, he now believed, after having participated in the discussion, that the world community was much closer to a definition of human security. Regarding a human security index, he suggested that regional organizations might have a better understanding of the local context that also avoided parochialism. At this point, the idea of human rights was a legal concept, while human security was a political construct. It also operated from a community perspective, rather than an individual one, as human rights did.
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