Dear brothers and sisters,
Allow me to draw your attention to debate on policy option. As part of my
research, I would like to invite your view on human security in Cambodia. I
intend to know if this new concept of human security can be considered as
useful and applicable in Cambodian context (why yes and why not). In what ways
if the concept is useful? What is the Cambodian government 's view and position
on human security? What sectors should human security in Cambodia entail/cover
and who should be the main actors to implement the human security if the
concept is to be operationalized? I appreciate your thought.
Following is some food for thought on human security concept.
Human security is a new paradigm and posits greatly in world politics as a
useful concept and policy framework and become an analytical policy concept in
the field of security and development studies. The need to shift to human
security emphasizes the bottom-up approach and cosmopolitan in characters to
secure individual human vital core especially the freedom of want and freedom
of fear. The human security acknowledges that the state remains a main actor in
guarantee the security for the nation and their people from any external
threats and violence. However, human security advocates multi approaches by
many players in fulfilling the human needs and safeguard individual security
when the state fails to provide security to their own people. The people as
referent for security and development study; not the state as referent in
realism, can be traced from Niccolo Machiavelli ’s writing which defined the
security as “absence of threats” to individual
(Linklater 2005). Unlike traditional security study strand which focuses on
protecting the national security (state-centric) and interest from any threats
by neighbors and terrorism, human security seeks to fulfill the human basic
need to ensure that individuals enjoy their potentials and all kinds of freedom
to acceptable welfare condition. Human dignity including the opportunity to
participate meaningfully in community life can be realized (Sen 2000, Thomas
2001). The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) formalized this concept in
1994 by encompassing broad range of issues which human-being need for their
daily lives. Since then, the human security concept earns noticeable
recognition in international politics and scholarly debate (Acharya 2007,
Alkire 2003, Kaldor et al 2007, Lautensach 2006 and Peou 2005). In 2003, the
commission on human security (CHS) produced a fine-tuned report: Human Security
Now under co-leadership of Sadako Ogata and
Amartya Sen. This report becomes main policy and conceptual framework for both
scholar and practitioners as the report articulates the multi dimensional
approaches in protecting and empowering the vital core of human.
There are four transformative reasons for this paradigm shift toward human
security approach. First, interstate conflict (external threats) is no longer
main concern for international security. Intrastate conflict, domestic threat
and internal political segregation have become increasingly worrying threat to
international security. Hunger, poverty, communicative deceases, economic
deprivation and unequal growth distribution, environmental depletion and
corrupt governance emerge as world problem and requires multi players to
address, not only the state, to ensure individual vital core especially freedom
from want and fear. Second, there is tendency in global politics toward
community emancipation especially in critical theory (Linklater 2007). Human
emancipation is defined as “the freeing of people” (as individuals and groups)
from the physical and human constraints which stop them from carrying out what
they would freely choose to do
(Caballero-Anthony 2005). The human security empowers individuals to exercise
the freedom and enjoyment of daily life without any concern of insecurity.
Human security emerges in response to a demand to guarantee the individuals
freedom as well as to safeguard the states (Thomas 2001). Third, there is an
argument that the liberal and republican approaches to peace-building prove
less effective in war-shattered countries to transplant the liberal democracy
and positive peace. Poverty, inequality and injustice remain the issue for
addressing and is believed as the fault of liberal and republican ideology
blueprint (Richmond 2006, Thomas 2001). The emergence of human security follows
indicative failure of peace-building principles in post-conflict societies
harbored by both liberalism and republicanism in recent UN missions (Newman and
Richmond 2001). In particular, the states fail evidently to fulfill their
obligations as the security guarantors for their
citizens (Lautensach 2006). The human security is remedial to this loophole
especially to enhance the healthy livelihood of individuals. At minimum, human
security requires basic needs are met for all humankind (Sen 2000: 1 and Thomas
2001: 162).
Finally, the human security concept is a nexus of development, security and
peace building which encompasses wide range of issues and was best specified
procedurally (Alkire 2003; 40). Peace and development are intertwined and
mutually depend. The development actors and peace building activists have their
own focus separately so far. Human security embraces the broad issues not only
economic and political development, but covers culture, rule of law, and social
inclusions. Human security now receives considerable acknowledgement as
important to make link between development, peace and good governance (Thomas
2001). “Putting people first” is slogan of human security meaning adopting the
bottom-up or local approach to security that moved away from equating the
security of state with the economic, political, social well-being of the
citizens (Krause & Jutersonke 2005). According to John Cockell (2001), human
security is a sustainable process of
preventing internal threats from causing protracted and violent conflict.
Protracted social conflicts are most often characterized by the contested
pursuit of basic human needs by disadvantaged social groups (Cockell 2001).
Amartya Sen (1999) raises that the world deprivation, destitution and
oppression is a central part of development exercise and demands individual
agency based approach to address such a problem to ensure individual freedom.
Human security has become foreign policy and operational framework in most
countries in Europe and some countries in Asia . The UN body is gradually
mainstreaming the human security through development framework, UN Trust Fund
for Human Security. Middle power nations such as Canada, Norway with their
like-minded states such as Austria, Chile, Greece, Ireland, Jordan, Mali, the
Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovakia and Thailand take a lead in mainstreaming
the human security in favor of freedom of fear, while the UN, Japan and other
international institutions adopt human security in search for freedom of want
(MacFarlane and Foong Kong 2006). There is a contested argument over the
concentration of human security between the “broad and narrow school of thought
of human security” (Kerr: 2007). The narrow school of thought argues that human
security should prioritize the violence threat to individual and seek strategy
to tackle this to ensure the individual
freedom of fear. Their success includes Ottawa on Ban Land Mines, small arm,
international criminal court etc. The broad school of thought argues that to
ensure human vital core and dignity, human security needs to deal with all
range of issues so that human needs can be met (freedom from want). The former
and the latter, however, work within the human security realm. The ASEAN
countries in particular have practiced a form of human security with different
name: comprehensive and cooperative security. The comprehensive security is
viewed as multifaceted by incorporating military, economic, social, cultural
and political dimensions. The cooperative security is seen as the potential
adversary within the regions which is conducive to human security. The ASEAN ’s
notion of comprehensive and cooperative security is the referent: the state-
its resilience, legitimacy and security- not individual as human security
entails. To put simply: most ASEAN countries
view that the legitimate and secure states means secure citizens (MacFarlane
and Foong Kong 2006).
Best regards.
Virorth
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