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Promoting human security
still key goal, says Rector
By Hans van Ginkel
The United Nations is our best and only
hope for international unity of purpose and action in a world of great
diversity.
Its Charter opens with the words: "We the peoples of the United
Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war
and... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women ... and to
promote social progress and better standards of life in larger
freedom."
Yes, the United Nations is still in existence, and yes, the noble goals
and sentiments which it symbolizes and strives for are as relevant today
as when they were first penned. The reason is simple: the Charter of the
United Nations is a ringing affirmation of what decades later came to be
called human security.
"Nation shall not rise up against nation" is the founding
premise of international security within the traditional framework which
views security in relation to the absence of wars between countries. In
order to defend the nation, to pursue national security, many governments
have called on citizens to make the ultimate sacrifice. This puts the
individual at the service of the state as and when called for duty by the
government of the day.
By contrast, human security puts the individual at the center of the
debate, analysis and policy. It is the individual who is paramount, and
the state is a collective instrument to protect human life and enhance
human welfare. And if the United Nations is an organization of
states, then it too must serve the people, who are the true masters of
their states, not the other way round.
The constitution inscribed for UNESCO further states that "since wars
begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of
peace must be constructed." So from this point of view, security must
be rooted in individual human beings.
The simple concept of human security thus has profound consequences for
how we see the world, how we organize our political affairs, how we make
choices in public and foreign policy, and how we relate to fellow-human
beings from many different countries and civilizations.
Because of this intellectual ancestry, it is no surprise that that the
concept of human security was first popularized by the 1994 Human
Development Report published by the U.N. Development Program. It was then
taken up by two countries in particular.
In Canada, former Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy made it almost a
personal mission to incorporate human security into official foreign
policy and also into international security discourse. This led to
Canadian leadership in
the international convention to ban antipersonnel land mines, on the
argument that the humanitarian carnage they cause far surpasses any
military utility they might have.
In Japan, the idea of human security appealed to Keizo Obuchi, first as
foreign minister and then as prime minister. He declared that the concept
would be one of the essential principles for the conduct of Japanese
foreign policy. He has left a lasting legacy. In Japan's foreign policy,
the emphasis is far more on practical humanitarian work and assistance,
such as assistance with land-mine removal, than with dazzling conceptual
advances.
As we know, however, intellectual pedigree, respectability and advance is
crucial to the development and evolution of society, at both national and
international levels. Recognizing this, the Japanese government
established a World Commission on Human Security consisting of 10 eminent
luminaries from around the world and co-chaired by Sadako Ogata and
Amartya Sen, one a distinguished practitioner, the other a renowned
scholar whose intellectual
contributions have been recognized with the award of a Nobel Memorial
Prize for Economic Sciences.
Ogata is well known for her work for 10 years as UNHCR. Professor Sen too
has interacted in various ways with parts of the United Nations, including
both the Human Development Report and the U.N. University.
Again,
this is not surprising, for UNU aspires to be a font of intellectual
authority for underpinning the operational activities of the United
Nations system. Under the leadership of the second Rector, Dr Soedjatmoko
of Indonesia, UNU was already active in promoting the concept of human
development.
Under the influence of Amartya Sen and others, we early on adopted and
promoted the idea of development as freedom from fear and freedom from
want: the necessary conditions of human security.
Building
on the vast intellectual legacy, much of it originating from inside or
channeled through the forum of the United Nations, the Ogata-Sen
commission's definition of human security is "to protect the vital
core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human
fulfillment."
As they note in their report, human security does not replace, but
complements, state security, enhances human rights and strengthens human
development.
This is why we at UNU have for many years now been saying that our goal is
to advance knowledge for human security and human development. We do this
mainly through research projects, whose policy relevance can be gauged
from the two factors in the Secretary-General's annual report presented
one month ago: the management of refugee movements and protection of
displaced people, and the protection of human rights in societies in
transition.
We are privileged and happy to be the mediating point for many of the
people of Japan and the United Nations system, just as we have been
enriched by the convergence of the human security agenda between Japan,
UNU and the United Nations.
Hans
van Ginkel is Rector of United Nations University and UN
Under-Secretary-General. This article was published in The Japan Times
October 24 to mark United Nations
Day.
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