Human security — LLMpedia

Human security
Name	Human security
Introduced	1994
Origin	United Nations Development Programme
Related	Humanitarian intervention, Human rights, Human development

Contents

Human security is a multidisciplinary paradigm that reframes safety and wellbeing around individuals and communities rather than states. Originating in the 1990s, it synthesizes concerns from United Nations Development Programme, Amartya Sen, Mahbub ul Haq, UN Commission on Human Rights and actors such as United Nations General Assembly, International Committee of the Red Cross, World Health Organization, and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to address threats from conflict, disease, and deprivation. Proponents link it to agendas promoted by Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, World Bank, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development while critics draw on scholarship associated with Realism (international relations), Liberalism (international relations), Constructivism (international relations), and figures like Thomas Hobbes and Carl von Clausewitz.

Overview and definitions

Scholars and practitioners offer competing definitions that emphasize freedom from fear, freedom from want, and freedom to live in dignity as advanced by United Nations Development Programme and proponents such as Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh and Samer Karam. Other framings derive from the Responsibility to Protect doctrine advocated at the 2005 World Summit, linking human protection to intervention debates involving North Atlantic Treaty Organization, African Union, and European Union. Definitions reference instruments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights while drawing legitimacy from bodies including the United Nations Security Council and International Criminal Court.

The concept traces intellectual roots to post‑World War II institutions such as the United Nations and Bretton Woods Conference outcomes embodied by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The 1994 Human Development Report distilled ideas from economists like Amartya Sen and policymakers including Mahbub ul Haq, prompting uptake in UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCR, and UNAIDS. Theoretical debates engage with securitization theory associated with scholars from the Copenhagen School (security studies) and critiques advanced by Feminist theory, Critical security studies, and thinkers like Cees W. van der Eijk and Barry Buzan. Links to practice appear in case studies involving Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Human security is often parsed into interrelated dimensions: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political security, categories popularized by UNDP and used by agencies such as World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, and United Nations Environment Programme. Economic aspects engage institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund; health dimensions involve World Health Organization and programs such as Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; environmental facets link to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and treaties like the Paris Agreement; personal and community security connect to United Nations Peacekeeping, International Committee of the Red Cross, and regional bodies such as the African Union and Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Measurement efforts build on indices and tools developed by organizations including UNDP, World Bank, Transparency International, and academic centers at Harvard University, Oxford University, and London School of Economics. Indicators draw from datasets hosted by World Health Organization, UNICEF, Food and Agriculture Organization, International Labour Organization, and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Composite indices—akin to the Human Development Index and proposals for a Human Security Index—combine variables such as life expectancy, malnutrition, displacement figures from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and conflict data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program and Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

Implementation occurs via multilateral agencies like UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCR, World Food Programme, and World Health Organization alongside bilateral donors such as the United States Agency for International Development, Department for International Development (UK), and Japan International Cooperation Agency. Approaches include prevention, protection, empowerment, and capacity building reflected in programs by International Committee of the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières, peacebuilding initiatives by United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, and development projects financed by the World Bank and regional development banks like the Asian Development Bank and African Development Bank. Legal and normative mechanisms interact with instruments such as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and humanitarian law codified in the Geneva Conventions.

Critiques question conceptual vagueness, operational utility, and potential for interventionism, voiced in forums involving United Nations General Assembly, scholars at Princeton University and Columbia University, and policy analysts from Chatham House. Debates examine securitization risks linked to the United States Department of Defense and counterarguments from humanitarians in International Committee of the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières. Others highlight measurement challenges raised by researchers associated with Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, International Crisis Group, and critics from Feminist theory and Postcolonial theory who point to asymmetries between donors—such as Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development members—and recipients in contexts like Haiti and Somalia.