CYIL 2012

HUMAN SECURITY IN TIMES OF WAR OR TOWARDS A FOURTH WAVE OF HUMANIZATION… in homes, in jobs or in communities”. 4 The report also made it clear that human security was a people-centred concept with universal aspirations, interdependent components and preference for prevention over intervention. Depending on the threats that individuals face, human security could take on one of seven recognized forms, those of economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political security. The concept quickly gained momentum. It was embraced by international institutions (the UN), a group of like-minded states (especially Canada, Japan, and Norway) and a growing number of scholars mostly with a background in the strategic studies or the theory of international relations. Despite the fact that it has been extensively written about over the past almost twenty years – or maybe partly due to this fact – the concept still lacks a uniform and universally accepted definition. It remains “contested /.../ in its definition, its scope, and its utility”. 5 One may even argue that it needs to be so, either because human security belongs among essentially contested concepts, which by their very nature cannot be precisely defined, 6 or because – more pragmatically – the ambiguity surrounding the concept helps promoting certain political and social agendas. 7 There are probably as many definitions of human security as there are authors writing about it. Yet, with some dose of simplification, two main approaches can be distinguished. These approaches concur in the criticism of the traditional paradigm of security. In the theory of international relations, security is usually characterised by means of four parameters which pertain to the referent object (security for whom?), the identity of the threat (security from what?), the means of ensuring security (security by what means?) and the actors granting it (security by whom?). Under the traditional realist and neo-realist paradigms, the focus is on states (referent object) which protect themselves (actors) against the risk of armed attacks (threat) by military force (means). In the post-1919 and post-1945 context, this model was slightly changed under the influence of the liberal tradition, and the mechanism of self-help was supplemented with that of collective security (actors). Yet, the focus on states as the main referent objects and on military force as both the main threat and the main means of ensuring security remained constant. Proponents of human security uniformly claim that the traditional definition is unduly narrow, as it does not reflect the challenges that the international system faces in the post-1990 era. They, however, disagree over the way in which the concept should be modified. Those favouring a narrow definition of human security (Canada, 4 UNDP, Human Development Report 1994, Chapter 2: New Dimensions of Human Security, New York, 1994, p. 23. 5 G. Oberleitner, Human Security:A Challenge to International Law?, 11 Global Governance (2005), p. 186. 6 W. B. Gallie, Essentially Contested Concepts, 56 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1956), 167-198. 7 R. Paris, Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?, 26 International Security 2 (2001), 87-102.

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