INDIA

CHINA

MYANMAR

THAILAND

CAMBODIAVIET NAM

LAOS

MALAYSIA

INDONESIA

PAPUANEW GUINEA

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

PHILIPPINES

TAIWAN

MALAYSIA

INDONESIA

PALAU

GUAM

Andaman SeaGulf ofThailand

Java Sea

South ChinaSea

Timor Sea

Philippine Sea

Arafura Sea

Gulf ofCarpentaria

P a c i f i c O c e a n

Manado

Samarinda

Rabaul

Lhasa

Imphal

Banjarmasin

Jayapura

Kupang

Pont ianak

Mandalay

Sit twe

Lae

Madang

Wewak

Baguio

Cagayan De Oro

Laoag

Zamboanga

Chumphon

Khon Kaen

Songkhla

Da Nang

Vinh

Chongqing

Dukou

Fuzhou

Guiyang

Jingdezhen

Kunming

Nanning

Pingxiang

Shantou

Shaoguan

Wenzhou

Xiamen

Zhanjiang

Medan

Surabaya

Taipei

Hai Phong

Ho Chi Minh City

NanchangZigong

Bandung

Palembang

Makasar

Davao

Agana

Victoria

Jakarta

Phnom Penh

Vientiane

Kuala Lumpur

Palikir

Rangoon

Saipan

Kokor

Manila

Singapaore

Bangkok

Bandar Seri Begawan

Port Moresby

Hanoi

25–27 October 2006Jakarta, Indonesia

Association of Southeast Asian Nations

Proceedings of the

ASEAN-UNESCO Concept Workshop on Human Security in South-East Asia

Conc

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siacouverure unesco 22/02/08 11:11 Page 1

Proceedings of the

ASEAN-UNESCO

Concept Workshop on Human Security

in South-East Asia

The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the participants in the ASEAN-UNESCO Concept Workshop on Human Security in South-East Asia and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASEAN and UNESCO. The designations employed throughout the publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of ASEAN and UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. None of the parts of this book, including the cover design, may be reproduced or copied in any way and by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, chemical, optical, or using photocopying techniques, without previous authorization from ASEAN and UNESCO.

Any communication concerning this publication may be addressed to: Mr M. C. Abad Jr Director ASEAN Regional Forum Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 726 2991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: mcabad@aseansec.org Website: http://www.aseansec.org/

Ms Moufida Goucha / Ms Claudia Maresia Section of Human Security, Democracy and Philosophy Social and Human Sciences Sector UNESCO 1, rue Miollis 75732 Paris Cedex 15, France Tel: +33 – 1 45 68 45 54 / 52 Fax: +33 – 1 45 68 55 52 E-mail: peace&security@unesco.org Website: http://www.unesco.org/securipax SHS/HS/2007/PI/07

© UNESCO, 2007 ASEAN, 2007 Published in 2007

Proceedings of the

ASEAN-UNESCO

Concept Workshop on Human Security

in South-East Asia

25–27 October 2006

Jakarta, Indonesia

Association of Southeast Asian Nations

Contents Foreword by Ong Keng Yong, Secretary-General of ASEAN, and Pierre Sané, Assistant Director-General, Social and Human Sciences Sector, UNESCO 7 Introduction by M. C. Abad Jr, Director, ASEAN Regional Forum Unit, ASEAN, and Moufida Goucha, Chief, Human Security, Democracy and Philosophy Section, UNESCO 11

PART I – HUMAN SECURITY IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA

Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in South-East Asia by Amitav Acharya, Deputy Director and Head of Research, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore 19 Human security in South-East Asia and the experience of the Commission on Human Security by Surin Pitsuwan, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Member of Parliament, Thailand 69

PART II – INTERREGIONAL DIALOGUE ON HUMAN SECURITY Reports by international experts

Central Asia Anara Tabyshalieva, Director, Kyrgyz Peace Research Center, Kyrgyzstan 75

North-East Asia Guan Xin Ping, Dean, Department of Social Work and Social Policy, Nankai University, China 83

Latin America and the Caribbean Francisco Rojas Aravena, Secretary-General, FLACSO, Costa Rica 93

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Africa Jakkie Cilliers, Executive Director, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa 105

Arab States Bechir Chourou, Professor, University of Tunis-Carthage, Tunisia 111

Eastern and Western Europe Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, Director, Center for Peace and Human Security, Sciences Po, France 117

APPENDICES Agenda 161 List of participants 165 Some UNESCO Publications on Human Security, Peace and Conflict Prevention 181

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Foreword by Ong Keng Yong Secretary-General of ASEAN and Pierre Sané Assistant Director-General, Social and Human Sciences Sector, UNESCO The long-standing and successful cooperation between UNESCO and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) dates back to the signing of the Agreement of Cooperation between ASEAN and UNESCO1 during the UNESCO-ASEAN Regional Symposium on Cooperative Peace in Southeast Asia (Jakarta, Indonesia, 11–12 September 1998), which issued the Statement on Peace in Southeast Asia on the Eve of the Third Millennium. That symposium contributed to the momentum that led to the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaiming the year 2000 as the International Year for the Culture of Peace. ASEAN and UNESCO collaboration also includes activities in the field of science and technology, such as the publication of the ASEAN Science and Technology Indicators; the Technology Scan Roundtable, and the ASEAN Virtual Institute of Science and Technology, which currently offers courses in bioinformatics, ecotourism and technology management. Within the framework of this cooperation, a joint ASEAN-UNESCO Concept Workshop on Human Security in South-East Asia was organized in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 25 to 27 October 2006, to hold an in-depth discussion on the relevance of the human security concept in the subregion. The concept of human security is a key element for widening the security agenda and encompassing security threats to the individual. Indeed, the human security concept considers the individual as the referent:

Today, we know that security means far more than the absence of conflict. We also have a greater appreciation for non-military sources of conflict. We know that lasting peace requires a broader vision encompassing areas such as education and health,

1 http://www.aseansec.org/1798.htm

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democracy and human rights, protection against environmental degradation, and the proliferation of deadly weapons. We know that we cannot build peace without alleviating poverty, and that we cannot build freedom on foundations of injustice. These pillars of what we now understand as the people-centred concept of human security are interrelated and mutually reinforcing (UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan).2

The promotion of human security is one of the main objectives of UNESCO’s Medium-Term Strategy for 2002–2007. Within this framework, Member States have emphasized the need to adequately comprehend the multidimensional nature of the concept of human security. Accordingly, UNESCO addresses ‘the need to prevent conflicts at their source … through its global network of peace research and training institutions, thereby reinforcing human security’ and contributes to ‘the elaboration of integrated approaches to human security at the regional, subregional and national levels, targeting the most vulnerable populations, including the prevention and resolution of conflicts’.3 UNESCO’s Programme on Human Security and Peace commissioned regional studies and carried out a series of regional conferences, in cooperation with local partners, to determine priorities in the area of human security in different parts of the world. In the past few years, regional conferences have been held in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, East and Central Asia and the Arab States. The results of all these gatherings are collected in UNESCO’s series Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in the various regions of the world, as well as in the proceedings of the regional conferences. From ASEAN’s side, the need for a comprehensive approach to security has been long recognized. The 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation called it ‘national resilience’ in political, economic and socio-cultural spheres. The ASEAN Vision 2020 called it ‘total human development’. Finally, our most recent guide, the Declaration of ASEAN Concord II, specifically stated that ASEAN ‘subscribes to the principle of comprehensive security as having broad political, economic, social and cultural aspects’. Under the Vientiane Action Programme (2004–2010), ASEAN commits itself to build a socio-cultural community with particular emphasis on the following four strategic thrusts: (a) establish strong and functional systems of social protection that

2 In Foreword to R. McRae and D. Hubert (eds), 2001, Human Security and the New Diplomacy: Protecting People, Promoting Peace, Montreal, McGill-Queens University Press, p. XIX. 3 31 C/4 Approved, Medium-Term Strategy 2002–2007, November 2001.

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address poverty, equity and health impacts of economic growth; (b) promote environmental sustainability and sustainable natural resource management that meet current and future needs; (c) promote social governance that manages impacts of economic integration; and (d) preserve and promote the region’s cultural heritage and cultural identity. ASEAN has gone beyond addressing traditional security issues. The ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime is carrying out the ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime. The following threats to human security have been identified: illicit drug trafficking, trafficking in persons, arms smuggling, terrorism, and various forms of economic crime. With a greater sense of urgency after the devastation caused by the tsunami in December 2004, ASEAN concluded an Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response in July 2005. In the field of public health, ASEAN is being guided by the Regional Framework for Control and Eradication of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. Furthermore, in recognition of the interdependence with the North-East Asian countries, ASEAN has entered the ASEAN Plus Three Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme, to build on the work of the ASEAN Disease Surveillance Network. Every now and then, some parts of the ASEAN region suffer from haze pollution resulting from forest fires. Its impact is not limited to disrupting social and economic life, but also the health and well-being of millions of people in the region. This is the reason why ASEAN is concerned and this is why it is hoped that the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution of 2002 will work with the participation of all ASEAN member countries. On the economic front, it is hoped that the realization of the ASEAN Economic Community will bring more opportunities for the people of the region, knowing that in the process some parts of the population might be negatively affected. ASEAN is also addressing the social impact of regional integration and globalization. It also aims to narrow the development gaps, not only among ASEAN member countries but also at national levels. One set of measures is contained in the ASEAN Action Plan on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication (2004–2010). We hope that this workshop has contributed to better understanding of the concept of human security, identified the priorities of the South-East Asia region in the field, come up with some policy-oriented and forward-looking realistic

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recommendations taking into account the experiences of other parts of the world, as well as comprehending the points of convergence between ASEAN and UNESCO so as to be conscious of their common goals.

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Introduction by M. C. Abad Jr Director, ASEAN Regional Forum Unit, ASEAN and Moufida Goucha Chief, Human Security, Democracy and Philosophy Section, UNESCO A three-day ASEAN-UNESCO Concept Workshop on Human Security in South-East Asia took place from 25 to 27 October 2006 in Jakarta (Indonesia). During the joint workshop, representatives of ASEAN Member States,4 ASEAN and UNESCO secretariats and the ASEAN Foundation, as well as eminent regional and international experts, discussed the issue of human security in South-East Asia, including the regional context, threats to human security and possible strategies to improve it in the subregion, perspectives for regional cooperation between UNESCO and ASEAN, etc. The discussion was aimed at understanding and determining the value of the concept of human security in the process of realizing the ASEAN community and its three pillars: the ASEAN Security Community – which acknowledges the strong interconnections among political, economic and social realities, and thus the principle of comprehensive security – the ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. This introduction is meant to provide a brief presentation of the outcomes of the brainstorming sessions and discussions on human security in South-East Asia held during the workshop. The chairpersons presented the participants with a set of questions to keep in

mind during the debates: 1. What do you think are the elements in historical/geopolitical contexts that

shape human security in the South Asia region? 2. How would you define human security in the South Asia region? 3. Which threats would you identify as the most critical over the next ten years?

4 Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Viet Nam.

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4. What would be the conditions conducive to sound policies in human security?

5. What are the priorities for action, and by whom? The presentations were a reminder that even though there has been initial

reticence, the concept of human security (as an approach to the protection of people and the fulfilment of their needs, and the protection of their rights) is gaining ground in the different regions of the world.

The main factors for this reluctance in the South-East Asia subregion are

twofold: the lack of understanding of the concept of human security, including it being used interchangeably with the concepts of human rights and humanitarian intervention, and the potential challenge the concept poses to the primacy of state or national security, which is given very high importance in the state-formation processes of countries in South-East Asia.

Human security priorities vary according to the contexts (historical, geopolitical,

socio-economic), but it is possible to see that, whether it is labelled human security or otherwise, there is agreement around the broad definition of protecting people and guaranteeing their freedom from fear, freedom from want, ability to grow, and the responsibility/obligation of the state as a provider of such. Human security should not fall into an ‘either/or’ kind of logic, when it comes

to its relationship with state security. The relationship between them should be stated in terms of ‘and/and’. This would allow human security to act as a facilitating concept (moving from concept/definition, to policy, to action) both making the state more secure (becoming more functional to human security, reinforcing its role as guarantor of security – inside its territory and beyond its borders), and citizens feel more secure. The ‘and/and’ logic also applies to state and non-state actors; they are not mutually exclusive, but have to work together in order to protect and promote human security. The need to also incorporate the corporate world, in a context of fast-track globalization, was also highlighted. On the definition, mention was made of the fact that the need for a clear

definition of what constitutes human security (a convergence on a common understanding of what constitutes a human security issue within ASEAN) would be the starting point to putting the recommendations into action, and to undertaking focused measures to tackle these issues.

12

The need to promote international cooperation and multilateralism, in order to tackle global problems/transnational threats, as well as that of promoting it from the international/governmental level down to a personal/individual one was also emphasized.

National gatherings, training sessions or workshops were among some suggested follow-up actions to bring the deliberations from the meeting back to the national level, educate people about human security and develop ‘ownership’ of the concept.

The relationship between human security and spiritual potential is not too distant from personal security. Some participants noted that the self-resiliency that an individual gets from looking for ‘God’s security’ is not touched on in modern discussions and conferences, because it is not pragmatic, and cannot be grasped through research and quantitative instruments. The workshop participants also agreed on a number of challenges for human

security in the South-East Asia subregion: 1. The political will of states to advance the goals of promoting human security

without being deterred by ideological rhetoric and academic debate; 2. The level of political awareness of the people; 3. International assistance: analysing the externalities of international aid, and

the conditionalities set for countries that receive it. The workshop debate came up with the following conclusions/

recommendations:

1. The definition of human security at the international level is evolving and, for the time being, common issues that face ASEAN countries make it desirable to work on a regional consensus.

2. The workshop participants favoured a broader definition of the concept of human security, which encompasses freedom from fear, freedom from want and freedom to grow (‘protected, provided and empowered’) and is closer to ASEAN’s concept of comprehensive security and non-traditional security issues.

3. Comprehensive security, involving political, economic, social and cultural aspects, remains a valid framework for ASEAN cooperation.

4. Freedom from fear and freedom from want are interrelated; hence there is a need for a multidimensional contextualized definition.

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5. There is a need to move from concept to policy to action, because the most vulnerable face threats to life, liberty and dignity. ASEAN need not wait to forge full consensus on the definition of human security before implementing the constituent elements of the concept.

6. There are existing standards of human rights to build upon. Protection of life and respect for human dignity are universal values and common elements of human security.

7. It is agreed that human security is not the same concept as state security. At the same time, national security and human security are complementary and mutually reinforcing.

8. National governments have the primary responsibility in promoting human security in cooperation with the international community.

9. Promotion of human security should be carried out by various social institutions, including governments, development agencies, industry, academic institutions, non-governmental organizations and others.

10. Human development is the main road to human security. In the context of ASEAN, the roadmap is the Vientiane Action Programme.

11. There are obligations of states to protect the most vulnerable, and a need to negotiate the exceptions to non-interference in the region.

12. The concept of human security should be promoted through education and research, especially in schools and academic institutions (and NGOs). All people need the environment and freedom to develop their own philosophy of life.

13. The role of the media in promoting human security, particularly in terms of access to information, should be mainstreamed.

The debate left open the following two questions:

1. Is there a value added for ASEAN to formally adopt the concept of human

security alongside its current concepts of comprehensive security and non-traditional security issues?

2. Can the recommendations (as stated in Amitav Acharya’s paper) be divided into short-, medium- and long-term recommendations to promote human security in the region?

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This concept workshop was a particularly fruitful opportunity for discussing the still evolving and sensitive notion of human security. The gathering illustrated the will, shared by ASEAN and UNESCO, to take stock of human security issues in South-East Asia, by also benefiting from the rich and diverse interregional dialogue made possible by the participation of renowned international experts.

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PART I

HUMAN SECURITY IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA

Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in South-East Asia5 by Amitav Acharya Deputy Director and Head of Research, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore Introduction

I am proposing … that we here at the PMC consider setting up an ASEAN-PMC Caucus on Human Security [for] mapping out steps and strategies for long-term approach to the cure for and prevention

of ‘human insecurity’ in our region. Surin Pitsuwan, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Thailand6

Human security: the best deterrent to terrorism Ong Keng Yong, Secretary-General of ASEAN7

The pursuit of human security means that regional institutions must be change

agents. They must have the political will to challenge the status quo. They must be given sufficient resources and the necessary mandate to alter situations. To pursue

human security means to enhance the capability of regional organizations to advance universal values effectively and with greater autonomy from its dominant

members and local interest groups. M. C. Abad Jr, Director of the ASEAN Regional Forum Unit at the ASEAN

Secretariat8

5 This presentation has already been published within the UNESCO series Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in the various regions/subregions of the world and can be consulted online (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001518/151821E.pdf). 6 Post-Ministerial Conference (PMC) 9+10 Session, Manila (Philippines), 28 July 1998. 7 Mobilizing multilateral resources in the war against terrorism: the role of ASEAN inside and outside of South-East Asia, speech at Inaugural Asia-Pacific Homeland Security Summit, Honolulu (United States of America), 20 November 2003; quote repeated at Third Asia-Pacific Homeland Security Summit and Exposition, Eight Steps in Securing Our Homelands, Honolulu, 21 September 2005. 8 The challenge of balancing state security with human security, paper presented at 9th Harvard Project for Asian and International Affairs Conference, Beijing (People’s Republic of China), 27–30 August 2000, p. 6.

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The concept of human security has been with us for over a decade now, but has made little inroad into the security thinking of South-East Asian states and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), with the three important exceptions quoted above. Part of the reason may be that South-East Asian governments feel they have had since the 1970s at least a ‘comprehensive’ notion of security and therefore, no further need for a concept that could be a passing fad. In this view, human security is simply a new label for old security challenges that the region has long recognized and addressed. Another reason for the lack of interest in human security is the underlying suspicion that the notion represents a Western agenda, centring on such liberal values and approaches as human rights and humanitarian intervention, and giving short shrift to the economic and developmental priorities of the region. This suspicion has been evident in debates about the meaning of concepts revolving around ‘freedom from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’, which have accompanied, and to some extent thwarted, efforts by Western norm entrepreneurs to introduce the notion of human security into Asia and South-East Asia. However, recent transnational dangers suffered by the region have blurred the distinction between traditional national security concerns and issues that might be included under the rubric of human security, whose main point of reference, as far as this report is concerned, is acute human suffering, including severe challenges to human dignity and safety. The Asian economic crisis during and after 1997, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 and the Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated coastal areas in Indonesia, Thailand and other South-East Asian nations in December 2004, along with the recurring haze problem and the latent danger of a major bird flu outbreak, have underscored the fact that major dangers to national and regional security in South-East Asia come from sources that have traditionally not formed part of the national security agenda of governments. Against this backdrop, the main purpose of this report is to examine how the concept of ‘human security’ can serve as the basis for a new approach to regional cooperation in South-East Asia, particularly by ASEAN. It is argued that making the idea of human security the basis for regional cooperation requires ‘localizing’ the idea within the existing security concepts and approaches of ASEAN.9 The major part examines the human security implications of three of the most severe transnational dangers that the region has faced since 1997 – the 1997 Asian

9 On the ‘localization’ of ideas and norms, see Acharya (2004b).

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financial crisis, the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 – as a way of highlighting and illustrating the relevance of human security as a framework for security analysis. It does not attempt to be comprehensive, covering all the referent objectives and issues of human security. For example, the incidence and impact of armed conflicts on human security in South-East Asia have been well documented by the Human Security Report issued by the University of British Columbia (Canada) Human Security Centre (HSC, 2005), whose findings on South-East Asia are analysed below. This report pays particular attention to the above crises. Such an approach provides a new and concrete empirical focus for the more abstract and conceptual debates about human security that have already taken place within and outside the region and have already proved their usefulness. Moreover, it takes a regional and regionalist perspective, rather than the country-by-country one found in many previous empirical studies on human security. In the above respects, it complements, rather than duplicates, an earlier study of human security in East Asia (including South-East Asia), commissioned by UNESCO and written by Prof. Shin-wha Lee of Korea University (Lee, 2004). This report not only pays more specific attention to the human security implications of regional crises, but also to the role of regional cooperation in addressing them. A regional perspective to human security in South-East Asia is justified because this region has a well-established institution in ASEAN, with a track record of dealing with security challenges with a regional focus.10 Moreover, a regional focus for this report is timely as ASEAN is in the process of developing new institutional mechanisms for dealing with conflict and security issues in the region, including problems that have acute human security implications. These initiatives include the ASEAN Security Community (alongside ASEAN Economic Community, ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community), as well as an ASEAN Charter. It is hence an opportune moment for ASEAN to rethink its principles and institutional mechanisms to make them more attuned to a human security agenda. The report is divided into four parts: an examination of the concept of human security and some Asian responses to it; a look at recent challenges to human security in the region, focusing on the impact of three crises (with a brief section on the human security implications of terrorism); an analysis of the relationship between human security and international and regional cooperation in the context of these crises; and some policy suggestions about how to promote the idea and practice of human security in South-East Asia.

10For a regional perspective on human development (hence subsumed by human security) in South-East Asia, see UNDP (2005b).

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I South-East Asia and the concept of human security It is now accepted that contemporary understanding of human security dates back to the 1994 Human Development Report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, 1994). This report lists seven separate components of human security: economic security (assured basic income), food security (physical and economic access to food), health security (relative freedom from disease and infection), environmental security (access to sanitary water supply, clean air and a non-degraded land system), personal security (security from physical violence and threats), community security (security of cultural identity), and political security (protection of basic human rights and freedoms) (Lodgaard, 2000). Since publication of the 1994 report, there has been considerable debate over the meaning of human security, which has been too well-covered in the academic and policy literature to require repetition here.11 Briefly stated, a Canadian definition advanced by the then External Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy closely linked human security with freedom from fear, especially in the conflict zones of the world. In Asia and South-East Asia, on the other hand, a broader conception of human security, focusing on freedom from want, prevails.12 Yet, South-East Asia historically has witnessed some of the worst violence of the twentieth century. The Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia killed about 1.7 million (about one quarter of the Cambodian population) during its brutal rule between 1975 and 1979.13 Anti-Communist riots that followed the transition from Sukarno to Suharto in the mid-1960s claimed about 400,000 lives (Schwarz, 1999, p. 20). The US war in Viet Nam produced 250,000 South Vietnamese, 1.1 million North Vietnamese and 60,000 American casualties (Olson, 1988; Tucker, 1999; US Department of Defense, n.d.). Ethnic and separatist movements in East Timor and Aceh have respectively claimed 200,000 and more than 2,000 lives (Wessel and Wimhofer, 2001).While there are no proper collated figures for ethnic separatism in Myanmar – usually low-scale, random casualties and conflicts, 600,000 ‘internally-displaced persons’ from these conflicts have been recorded (US Department of State, 2003).

11 This section draws on an earlier article that offered an extended discussion of the definitional and conceptual issues associated with the human security paradigm (Acharya, 2001). 12 For discussions on human security in an Asian context, which incorporates South-East Asian issues, see the following collections of essays: Matsumae and Chen (1995), Tow et al. (2000), International Conference on Human Security in a Globalized World (2000), Thiparat (2001). See also Yamamoto (2001) and Zhao-rung (1999). For a sceptical view of human security presented to an Asian audience, see Buzan (2001). 13 Yale University Cambodian Genocide Program website (http://www.yale.edu/cgp/).

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Table 1. Reported deaths from political violence in Asia by country (2002–03)a

State-basedb Non-statec One-sidedd Total Death ratee

Asia 2002 2003 2002 2003 2002 2003 2002 2003 2002 2003 Afghanistan 400 168 187 149 0 0 587 317 2.1 101 India 2 008 1 899 1 500 0 538 531 4 046 2 430 0.4 0.2 Indonesia 112 429 0 0 252 88 364 517 0.2 0.2 Myanmar 230 40 91 0 37 0 358 40 0.7 0.1 Nepal 2 425 1 064 0 0 233 0 2 658 1 064 11.0 404 Pakistan 265 144 0 0 0 54 265 198 0.2 0.1 Philippines 539 1 085 0 0 78 65 617 1 150 0.8 1.4 Sri Lanka 0 25 0 0 0 0 0 25 0.0 0.1 Thailand 0 0 0 0 0 74 0 74 0.0 0.1 Notes: a. Fatality figures are ‘best estimates’. b. State-based armed conflict is conflict in which at least one of the warring parties is a state, and that

results in more than twenty-five battle-related deaths per calendar year. c. Non-state armed conflict is the use of force between two organized groups, neither of which is the

government of a state, which results in at least twenty-five battle-related deaths per calendar year. d. One-sided violence is defined by Uppsala University’s Conflict Data Programme as the use of force

against civilians by the government of a state, or by a formally organized group, that results in at least twenty-five deaths per calendar year.

e. Number of fatalities per 100,000 population, rounded to the nearest decimal. Population data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators database for 2002.

Source: Uppsala Human Security Centre dataset as presented in Human Security Report 2005 (HSC, 2005).

The Human Security Report prepared by the Human Security Centre at the University of British Columbia, Canada (HSC, 2005), from which Table 1 is taken, offers many interesting snapshots of the mixed (good and bad news) state of human security in Asia and South-East Asia. On the good news side, the report suggests that since the end of the Korean War in 1953 there has been a clear but uneven decline in battle-deaths around the world, including South-East Asia. From 1946 to the mid-1970s, by far the highest battle-death tolls were on the battlefields of East Asia, South-East Asia and Oceania. But in 2003, these regions saw less than one-third of the number of armed conflicts they had experienced in 1978. This decline was due to increased prosperity, democratization and the ending of large-scale foreign intervention. After accounting for most of the world’s battle-deaths from 1946 to the mid-1970s, East Asia, South-East Asia and Oceania have been free of major conflict since the fighting in Cambodia and Viet Nam, both South-East Asian states, ended. But the single most important reason for the decline in battle-deaths over the past fifty years is the changing nature of warfare, especially the transition from large-

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scale conventional inter-state conflict to unconventional low-intensity conflict. The major wars of the 1950s to 1970s – the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War and the wars in Indochina – involved huge armies that deployed heavy conventional weapons and engaged in major battles. The warring parties were sustained by the superpowers and the death tolls were high. By the end of the century the nature of armed conflict had changed radically. Most of today’s armed conflicts fall into one of two categories. The vast majority are so-called ‘low-intensity’ civil wars, almost all of which take place in the developing world. These use ill-trained, lightly armed forces, do not involve major military engagements and kill relatively few people. The other is ‘asymmetric’ conflict using high-tech weaponry against weaker opponents. Due to the extreme power imbalances, the durations of such conflict are usually short, with relatively few combat deaths compared with other major engagements of the Cold War period.

Yet, and this is the bad news which must not be forgotten because of the above trends, several South-East Asian countries were near the top of the list of Asia-Pacific nations that fought the most ‘international wars’ between 1946 and 2003. A sampling of the countries includes Thailand (six wars), Democratic Republic of Vietnam (five wars), and Republic of Vietnam (four wars). The other countries in the high categories include Australia (seven wars), China (six wars), and New Zealand (four wars). South-East Asia was also the scene of the most brutal and far-reaching form of ‘politicide’ in Asia. Politicide describes policies that seek to destroy groups because of their political beliefs rather than religion or ethnicity. Genocide and politicide can take place during or after civil wars – as happened in Cambodia in 1975–79.

Internal conflicts have also been a serious challenge in South-East Asia. The most conflict-prone countries from 1946 to 2003, in terms of having experienced the greatest number of conflict-years,14 are Myanmar (232 conflict-years), India (156 conflict-years), Philippines (86 conflict-years), Democratic Republic of Vietnam (60 conflict-years), Indonesia (40 conflict-years), Cambodia (36 conflict-years), Republic of Vietnam (36 conflict-years), Thailand (35 conflict-years), and Australia (31 conflict-years). Myanmar, which was embroiled in six different intra-state conflicts, is the world’s most conflict-prone country.

14 It is possible for a country to be involved in two or more state-based armed conflicts in a given year and thus accumulate more than one conflict-year for each calendar year. Myanmar, for example, was embroiled in six different intra-state conflicts.

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Also on the negative side is increased militarization of the region as measured in terms of the ratio of security forces to the overall population. The HSC report cites a 1999 study of Asian militaries (North-East, South-East, and South Asia) which found that between 1975 and 1996 the ratio of security forces to population had risen by 29% in Thailand, 42% in Myanmar, 63% in China, 64% in Pakistan and 81% in Sri Lanka (Collier, 1999). Most of these increases were the result of a build-up of paramilitary forces. Many paramilitaries, like those of Indonesia, have developed sinister reputations, with some being responsible for horrific acts of violence. But the trend towards the rise of paramilitaries is more pronounced in North-East Asia and South Asia than in South-East Asia. Armed more heavily than the police but more lightly than the military, the rapid growth of the paramilitaries is due to their inexpensiveness – for example China’s militarized police forces. The growth of paramilitary forces is one of the most significant recent changes in the global security landscape. In China and India – two of the five countries with the largest armed forces in the world – paramilitary forces now account for between one-third and one-half of total military personnel. Mapping popular concerns about violence around the world, the Human Security Centre commissioned Ipsos-Reid to conduct a global survey of people’s fears and experiences of political and criminal violence in eleven countries, including India, Japan and Thailand. The survey showed marked divergences between perceived risks and actual experience. Half the Thai respondents believed that they would be victims of violence in the coming twelve months. Yet only 7% of Thais had been victims of any violent attack or threat during the previous five years. Just 1% of Indians and Japanese had personally experienced violence, but 10% and 14%, respectively, feared they would become crime victims in the next year. Only 9% of Indians polled wanted their governments to make fighting terrorism the top priority, despite the fact that 51% of them had rated terrorism as the threat of most concern to them personally. Only 2% of Thais and less than 6% of Japanese felt terrorism should be their government’s primary concern. Despite the region’s past brush with human insecurity measured in terms of conflict and people’s persistent sense of fear, the concept of human security has found little resonance in the thinking and approach of South-East Asian governments. Why is this so? Three reasons stand out. First, South-East Asian governments remain wedded to national or state security. Average public expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP still falls far short of the spending military affairs. In fact, in 2000, the average 1.5% of their public budgets that South-East Asian countries dedicated to health spending was only a

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little more than half of the 2.4% spent on military expenditure. Education spending amounted to 2.7%. Military and social indicators in these countries show that human security concerns such as healthcare have not eclipsed national security concerns of military strategy, while education shows more promise, but only just. Why the importance of national security over human security? To some extent, South-East Asia’s security predicament reflects the general state of Asian security. As I argued in a previous study:

As a region, Asia is hardly a Kantian paradise. It has more than its fair share of territorial disputes, other forms of inter-state rivalry, economic competition and great power intervention. The end of the Cold War has not led to the disappearance of these challenges. Indeed, most of the most serious conflicts in Asia predate the end of the Cold War and have not been moderated by its end. Hence, the importance of national security does have its basis in the traditional security problematic of Westphalian states … The salience of national security in Asia also owes [much] to the international power structure and rivalries. The Cold War institutionalised the national security paradigm throughout the region as the superpowers helped their allies and clients to devote vast resources to the military sector in support of their geopolitical ambitions. Generous arms transfers and military basing arrangements supported regimes which gave priority to national security even though many of them were committing gross violations of human security (Acharya, 2003).

While most South-East Asian policy-makers argue that national and state security need not be incompatible with human security and that the former is a precondition for the latter, there are some areas of tension between the two approaches. Hence, a second reason for the limited acceptance of the human security concept in South-East Asia has to do with the fact that some of the initial Western articulation of the concept associated it with intervention, especially humanitarian intervention. Indeed, a suspicion that creating mechanisms and institutions to promote human security might require states to relinquish their sovereignty is a key reason for the wariness of South-East Asian governments, with their deep attachment to Westphalian sovereignty, to embrace human security. As Surin Pitsuwan, former Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of the Commission on Human Security, put it:

Where is human security in Southeast Asia: not very far? If there is any region that is suspicious of external involvement or jealous of the concept of sovereignty, it is Southeast Asia. The concept of sovereignty is still very sacred here. ASEAN is yet to adopt human security.15

15 Personal interview, October 2005.

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South-East Asian policy-makers realize that some of the initial formulations of the concept of human security focused more on freedom from fear, rather than freedom from want. The latter, reflecting the Japanese approach, is deemed in South-East Asia to be a softer, more considerate, less provocative interpretation of human security. Reinforcing this belief is the fact that some of the most ardent champions of human security in Asia come from backgrounds that have stressed the concept of human security as first and foremost a development-oriented concept, or at least have advocated both freedom from want and freedom from fear. For example, Amartya Sen, co-chair of the Human Security Commission, comes from a development economics background, while championing ‘development as freedom’. As Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs, Surin Pitsuwan stressed the need for human security as a way of lifting Asia out of the misery caused by the Asian financial crisis of 1997. But South-East Asia’s initial misgivings about human security may be changing. One of the clear articulations of a more receptive attitude in ASEAN towards human security can be found in the words of M. C. Abad Jr, a senior official at the ASEAN Secretariat. Although this is not necessarily representative of the attitude of the ASEAN countries as a whole, it does provide a clue to some of the new thinking in the region towards human security:

National governments and regional institutions must preserve and extend the progress made in securing states against the external threat of war while finding ways to safeguard people against internal threats of repression and gross deprivation of basic human needs. While the universal concern for human security should not be used as a cover to undermine the political integrity of nation states, particularly [in] the developing world, regional and national security should not be used as an argument to perpetuate gross violation and deprivation of human security and against international intervention (Abad, 2000, p. 2).

A number of developments have underscored the need for regional governments to rethink the relevance of human security in South-East Asia. The most important catalyst for what might become a more receptive attitude in ASEAN towards human security has to do with the severe transnational challenges faced by South-East Asian societies since 1997. A key episode was the Asian financial crisis in 1997, whose impact, measured in terms of increased poverty levels and damage to the social, educational and other aspects of the well-being of people in crisis-hit countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and the Republic of Korea, were nothing short of catastrophic. This economic crisis was followed by other new transnational threats, such as the haze out of Indonesia, 9/11, the terrorist bombings in Bali in

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2001 and the outbreak of SARS and the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004. Although rooted in divergent causes, these threats share some important characteristics. First, the crises arrived suddenly and unexpectedly. They had not been predicted. Few had imagined the scale of the financial shocks and currency devaluations of 1997 that originated in Thailand and spread through the region, thereby marking an end to the heyday of the ‘Asian economic miracle’. A second feature of these crises, with the exception of the tsunami, is their link with globalization. The financial crisis of 1997 would not have been possible without the dependence of the countries of the region on foreign investment and their openness to global financial transfers. Terrorism thrives on transnational illegal money transfers and diffusion of radical Islamic ideologies. The SARS crisis shows the danger of the rapid spread of pandemics made possible by international tourism and travel. Third, many if not all threats to human security are transnational in origin. They arise from a close interaction between domestic vulnerabilities and external developments. They replicate themselves across many national and regional boundaries. Interdependence and globalization serve as transmission belts for these threats. Challenges to human security, such as poverty caused by financial crises or infectious diseases such as SARS, can afflict a country even if it maintains the most secure territorial border and extends its sovereignty to the remotest parts therein. As such, these crises have underscored the limits of a security paradigm that expects the most dangerous challenges to security to come from invasion or insurgency. They also show the extent to which regime security can be severely undermined by acute crises of human insecurity. The collapse of the Suharto regime highlighted the fact that security of the authoritarian developmental regimes cannot be insulated from crises that produce large-scale human suffering. There is a growing realization in the region that in facing transnational dangers in an era of globalization, the state cannot claim a monopoly in containing such dangers or providing solutions. The role of other actors, such as civil society groups, is critical. Over time, this may facilitate a slow but discernable shift towards human security, as a complement, if not an alternative to, the traditional national security paradigm. Moreover, these challenges have contributed to a greater realization that human security, in its broader aspects, matters. The economic crisis exerted downward pressure on military spending, a key indicator and driver of national security. At least the crisis makes it harder for governments to increase defence spending without substantial justification. Although defence spending has continued to take

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the lion’s share of national budgets, the Asian crisis, nonetheless, prompted governments to pay more attention to social expenditures in order to avoid further and future instability. The SARS crisis highlighted the need for better health facilities, even in advanced economies such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. The challenge posed by terrorism highlighted the need for personal safety and the security of public space, although this has been somewhat countered by the growing intrusiveness of governments and the curtailment of civil liberties in both Western and Asian countries. Indeed, as mentioned at the outset, the current Secretary-General of ASEAN, Ong Keng Yong, has stressed a ‘human security’ approach to combating terrorism in South-East Asia. (See Table 6 on pages 56-59 for an outline of how terrorism has affected regional cooperation in South-East Asia.) It is also noteworthy that crises such as SARS, the tsunami and bird flu have brought to the fore the realization of the gravity of the ‘non-traditional’ security threats to South-East Asian states and societies. Many of the non-traditional security issues have human security dimensions. Like non-traditional security, human security takes a broader view of the sources of threat to the well-being of states and peoples. To quote Surin Pitsuwan again, in South-East Asia today, the so-called ‘non-traditional security issues are becoming traditional security issues. The traditional way of dealing with them is no longer adequate. All of these issues have human security dimensions. All the crises we have experienced in the last five years, while the roots may be different, all of them have human security dimensions.’ Indeed, this overlap between ‘non-traditional security’ and human security makes it easier to promote the substance, if not the exact terminology, of human security in the region. Speaking of the impact of these crises, Surin Pitsuwan notes: ‘One good thing about the repeated crises we are having is that a sense of community is growing very fast in the region.’16 This may lead to rethinking the traditional notions of sovereignty and non-interference, and a growing realization of the need for mutual help and sharing of information and resources, which may over time lead to a redefinition of sovereignty as mutual help, or what may be termed ‘mutual self-help’ as a way of promoting regional collective human security. Indeed, some of these crises provided the context and rationale for deeper regional understanding of issues causing acute human insecurity in the region. For example, a state-centred institution focusing on economic matters, Asia-Pacific Economic

16 Personal interview, October 2005.

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Cooperation (APEC), in 1999 found it possible to discuss the East Timor crisis, with its acute human insecurity dimensions, despite initial Chinese objections. Indonesia accepted the deployment of foreign troops to manage the crisis despite its misgivings over the notion of humanitarian intervention under Australian leadership. Similarly, the aftermath of the tsunami saw Indonesia allowing major relief operations by foreign troops, including American naval forces providing humanitarian relief and assistance. For the above reasons, the regional political climate in South-East Asia may be shifting towards greater acceptance of the principles of human security. This has to do with democratic transitions (if not consolidation) in several regional polities, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. These South-East Asian states have joined the Republic of Korea and Taiwan in creating greater democratic space for human security concepts and approaches. Many of them support civil society groups that create greater awareness of the need for human security and the dangers of excessive concentration on national security. Some of the governments of these states have also championed the human security concept more openly as a way of distancing themselves from their authoritarian predecessors, enhancing their international legitimacy and attracting development assistance. The foregoing discussion leads to the following observation. Traditional incidences of human insecurity, such as those captured by armed conflict indicators that form the basis of the Human Security Report, have been acute in South-East Asia. Yet they have not been sufficient in galvanizing regional official thinking into wholeheartedly embracing the concept of human security. Will it then help to gain more regional acceptance of the notion by broadening the referent objects of human insecurity to include the recent crises which have affected both freedom from fear and freedom from want (meaning they affected the region’s economic prospects as well as posing a severe threat to the well-being and safety of its peoples)? Without downplaying the importance of the armed conflict indicators or the approach taken by the Human Security Report, this author believes that a strategy of ‘localizing’ the human security concept and thereby securing it greater acceptance can benefit from such broadening, i.e. looking beyond the armed conflict indicators of human security. Hence the following sections elaborate on the human security implications of regional crises that incorporate broader referent objects of human security.

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II Human security implications of major crises in South-East Asia: 1997–2005

1 The Asian economic crisis The Asian financial crisis started in 1997 and acutely affected four South-East Asian countries – Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines (Table 2). During the worst first weeks of January 1998, the Thai baht fell by 40%, the Indonesian rupiah by 80%, the Malaysia ringgit by 40%, and the Philippine peso by 30% against the dollar from their values on 1 July 1997 (Setboonsarng, 1998). The depreciation of these currencies placed pressure on Singapore, the regional trade centre, to follow suit. Although Brunei earns petrodollars from its exports of oil and gas, and major imports of food come from ASEAN countries with devalued currencies, its currency was also devalued since it is tied to the Singapore dollar. New members of ASEAN, Viet Nam, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and Myanmar – and the soon-to-be member, Cambodia – were also affected, as most of their foreign direct investments come from the older member countries of ASEAN (Setboonsarng, 1998). In terms of capital outflow, more than $30 billion fled Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand in 1997 and 1998. Thailand was one of the countries worst hit by the crisis and it accepted a US$17.2 billion (HK$133.12 billion) rescue package from the International Monetary Fund in August 1997.17

Table 2. Impact of Asian financial crisis (GDP) (Constant 1995 US$ billion)

1996 1998 % change 1996–98

Indonesia 226 51 –77.4 Malaysia 92 71 –22.8 Philippines 84 68 –19.1 Singapore 91 92 –2.2 Thailand 186 97 –47.9 Asia 2 432 2 172 –10.7

Source: The Economist, 7 February 1998, p. 74.

The World Bank described the crisis as ‘the biggest setback for poverty reduction in East Asia for several decades’ (Ching, 1999). The impact on unemployment was 17 Number of Asian poor set to double (http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/7915/9811/Asia_Poverty-Dbl.html).

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severe. A study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) showed that between August 1997 and December 1998, unemployment in Indonesia rose from 4.3 million to 13.7 million. In Thailand, the numbers exploded from 700,000 in February 1997 to 1.9 million in December 1998, and in Malaysia from 224,000 unemployed in December 1997 to 405,000 in December 1998 (Marx, 1999). Indonesia suffered the sharpest increases in unemployment and poverty (Sussangkarn et al., 1999). The crisis toppled the Suharto regime and generated intra-regional strains – especially evident in relations between Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. The rise of Islamic political forces in Indonesia following the downfall of Suharto rekindled anxieties in Singapore about the potentially harmful impact of instability in its neighbours. Singapore’s leaders, for example, were worried that instability in Indonesia would have spill-over effects. With the downfall of Suharto, a founding figure and key anchor of South-East Asian regionalism, the crisis also cast an additional shadow over ASEAN’s future. One of the major consequences of the Asian crisis was the focus on social and economic safety nets for the poor (Table 3). As the economist Mukul Asher points out (1999, pp. 44–45), human suffering from the crisis spurred East Asian countries to look again at the state of their respective social safety nets and to reconfirm that they can indeed achieve the goals for which they were formulated. In his view, countries must design and implement social safety nets that adequately protect individuals from an ‘abrupt and sharp fall in living standards in the event of unemployment, disability, sickness, incapacitation, or retirement’. Asher argues that although East Asia managed the short-term social ramifications of the crisis more ably than was initially thought, reforms to formal social security arrangements remained essential if the objective was sustained economic growth. This was particularly salient in view of several social factors ‘typically inherent’ to economic growth and modernization. Among these factors, he stresses the likelihood of further erosion in informal community and family support systems significant to increasing individualism and broadening lifestyle choices. In addition, the relative rise in the aged population as longevity increases and birth rates decline throughout Asia anticipates increased social safety costs. These ‘simultaneous trends’ would compel governments to accept increasing responsibilities to meet these higher social safety costs. Asher notes that the mere existence of secure social safety nets would substantially reduce much of the anxiety about the future that had frustrated many in this region.

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Table 3. Social impact issues in four country studies Issue discussed Thailand Indonesia Malaysia PhilippinesEmployment √ √ √ Formal/informal/displaced √ √ Unemployment √ √ √ √ Underemployment √ √ √ Participation rate √ √ √ √ Sectoral mobility √ √ √ √ Retrenchment √ √ √ Wage, real wage √ √ √ Strikes √ Geographical mobility √ Urban-rural migration √ √ √ Overseas/guest workers √ √ √

Women √ √ √ Children √ √ √ √

Vulnerable, disadvantaged groups Elderly √ √ √ Poverty √ √ √ Income distribution √ √ √ Education √ √ √ √ Health √ √ √ √ Housing/shelter √ √ Environment √ Community/family √ Food security √ Safety net √ √ √ √ Source: Paitoonpong (2000, p. 9).

Apart from being desirable, social safety nets are also feasible. Asher argues that their realization implies much work, but as many Asian countries have existing systems that facilitate corruption, these must be eliminated before good governance can be installed. Moreover, the current environment of financial constraints and weakening government efficacy was not conducive to the success of ambitious projects. As a result, effective reform and implementation would require concerted political will and government capacity, along with increased efficiency and focus of public services. These facilitations depend on broader reforms in for example the financial sector, labour markets, the civil service and corporate governance. While these reforms would prove to be tremendous challenges to governments, specifically to their existing social safety systems, reforms are ‘indispensable’ in Asian nations wishing to provide sustainable, greater financial security and international competitiveness for their populations.

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2 The SARS outbreak The next crisis facing South-East Asia was the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), an atypical form of pneumonia with a mortality rate of around 10% that first appeared in November 2002 in Guangdong (China). Within a short time, the epidemic had a more severe impact on the regional tourism and economy than the September 11 attacks. There were a total of 8,069 cases of disease and 775 deaths, of which 350 were from mainland China. Despite taking some action to control the epidemic, China did not notify the World Health Organization (WHO) of the outbreak until February 2003, when the disease had spread rapidly, reaching nearby Hong Kong and Viet Nam in February 2003, and then to other countries via international travellers. The Chinese authorities had curbed coverage of the epidemic so as to preserve ‘face’ and public confidence. This lack of openness caused the country to take the blame for delaying the international effort against the epidemic. The virulence of the symptoms and the infection of hospital staff alarmed global health authorities fearful of another emergent pneumonia epidemic. On 12 March 2003 WHO issued a global alert, followed by a health alert by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Local transmission of SARS took place in Toronto, Singapore, Hanoi, Taiwan, the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Shanxi, and Hong Kong, and over 1,200 people were under quarantine in Hong Kong, 977 in Singapore and 1,147 in Taiwan. WHO calculated the cost of SARS to the Asian region to be US$30 billion, while the Asian Development Bank assessment puts the figure at around US$60 billion (ADB, 2003). In Asia, governments and private analysts slashed their economic growth estimates for 2003 – Hong Kong was downgraded from 2.5% to 1.5%, with the cost of SARS estimated at about US$1.7 billion, Singapore from 3.5% to 2%, Malaysia from 5% to 4%, and Thailand from 4.5% to 4.3% (Richardson, 2003; FEER, 2003). In Singapore, officials said that with the SARS crisis, air travel arrivals had dropped by half compared with the previous year to 62,500 in the first week of April. Retail sales dropped by almost 50% in the same period, and hotel room occupancy rates hovered between 10% and 20%. As the Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong observed, ‘This crisis is not just a crisis of SARS, it is also a crisis of fear – people fear catching SARS’ (FEER, 2003).

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3 The Indian Ocean tsunami18

Another crisis facing South-East Asia since 1997 was the tsunami disaster that devastated Asian countries in the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004. The magnitude of the earthquake was recorded as 9.15 on the Richter scale, triggering earthquakes as far away as Alaska, and killed at least 200,000 people, making it one of the deadliest disasters in modern history (Table 4). A large number of South-East Asian countries and beyond were affected, including Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, Somalia and South Africa. Countries such as Sweden and Germany also lost over 500 citizens. Indonesia was the hardest hit – the epicentre of the earthquake that triggered the deadly waves was located off the coast of Sumatra, whose coastal regions were destroyed. At least 128,000 people died, while at least 37,000 others remain missing in Indonesia and are supposed dead. In India, more than 10,000 people lost their lives, mostly from Tamil Nadu and the Nicobar and Andaman islands. India, while refusing foreign aid for itself, provided assistance to other affected countries, especially Sri Lanka.19 More than 5,300 people were killed in Thailand, of which 2,200 were foreigners from 36 countries. The number of people still missing exceeds 2,800. Malaysia was shielded by Sumatra, therefore spared the widespread devastation. Nonetheless, at least 68 people were confirmed dead.

Table 4. Countries most seriously affected by the tsunami Country Killed Country Affected Indonesia 165 708 Sri Lanka 1 019 306 Sri Lanka 35 399 India 654 512 India 16 389 Indonesia 532 898 Thailand 8 345 Somalia 105 083 Somalia 200 Thailand 67 007 Source: EM-DAT (n.d.).

The US Geological Survey estimates the toll as 283,100 killed, 14,100 missing and 1,126,900 people displaced (USGS, 2004). This is the single worst tsunami in history – the previous record was the Awa tsunami in Japan in 1703 that killed over 100,000 people (PBS, n.d.).

18 This section draws on Acharya (2005a). 19 Asian Survey, January/February 2005, p. 82.

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Although some economists believe that the damage to countries affected by the tsunami would be minor as losses in the tourism and fishing industries constituted a small percentage of their GDP (IMF, 2005; Australian, 2005), others warn that damage to infrastructure is an overriding factor. In certain areas, supplies of drinking water and farm fields may have been contaminated for years by salt water (NewScientist.com). The tsunami helped to focus international attention on natural disasters as a threat to human security. It showed the need for Asian governments and their regional institutions to bring a human dimension to their approach to security cooperation. Dramatically, if tragically, the tsunami showed why attention to human elements of security is critical. Affluent beachgoers and tourists were not the main casualties of the tsunami. Rather, the victims were mostly poor people who lived in villages, slums and shanty-towns close to the shore. Another aspect of human insecurity that was highlighted is the disproportionately large number of children killed. Environmental security was also an issue as areas that were protected by coral reefs and mangroves suffered less damage. In the debate over human security, South-East Asian countries had tended to put forth ‘freedom from want’ as an alternative to the Western notion of human security as ‘freedom from fear’. But with people in poverty-stricken areas developing a new fear of natural disasters, the tsunami rendered this distinction meaningless. There is now a need to rethink human security in terms of protecting people from natural disasters.

4 Terrorism and human security20

Since the first Bali bombings in October 2002, terrorism has been a major focus of South-East Asian governments. But discerning the human security implications of terrorism is problematic. While terrorism itself is a scourge of human security in its substantive sense as security of the person from mindless violence and cruelty, and anti-terrorist measures can be justified as protection for individuals as well as states, there is considerable scope for abuse in the way the discourse on terrorism is conducted and the responses to it. Moreover, responses to this challenge in Asia, as in the West, have been undertaken primarily within the framework of national security. This is true of homeland security doctrines that are now being implemented as a counter-terrorism measure. In fact, it can be argued that terrorism 20 For further discussion, see Acharya (2005b).

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has refocused the attention of security discourse and policy back to national security concerns.

While governments and academic analysts spend much time talking about the need to address the ‘root causes’ of terror, which are defined in terms of poverty, inequality and injustice, etc., much of the response to terrorism in the region has been to strengthen the traditional toolkit of state security: intelligence agencies, surveillance networks and counter-insurgency forces, rather than allocate resources to poverty eradication and to education and health sectors that could address these root causes. Overall, the war on terror in South-East Asia has been marked by the dominance of strategic, rather than political and humanitarian, responses. III Human security and regional cooperation

South-East Asia responded to the challenges discussed above with a mix of old and new forms of cooperation. The following sections examine the responses of regional organizations and states to recent crises. 1 The Asian economic crisis21 The Asian economic crisis may have advanced the agenda of human security in two ways. The first was by challenging the time-honoured principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of states. ASEAN’s norm of non-interference was given as the reason why none of the association’s partners made any effort to warn Bangkok of its evident mismanagement of the national economy. The then Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs, Surin Pitsuwan, openly called for ASEAN to review its non-interference doctrine so that it could develop a capacity for ‘preventing or resolving domestic issues with regional implications’ (Straits Times Interactive, 1998). He argued: ‘it is time that ASEAN’s cherished principle of non-intervention is modified to allow it to play a constructive role in preventing or resolving domestic issues with regional implications’. To make the grouping more effective, Surin urged that ‘when a matter of domestic concern poses a threat to regional stability, a dose of peer pressure or friendly advice at the right time can be helpful’ (Bangkok Post, 1998, p. 5). Surin’s initiative, dubbed ‘flexible engagement’, received support from just one other ASEAN member, the Philippines. ASEAN Foreign Ministers, at their annual meeting in Manila in July 1998, decided to stick to the old principle of non-interference (Straits Times Interactive, 1998).

21 This section draws on Acharya (1999), pp. 1–29.

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But it was also in response to the crisis that ASEAN decided to develop cooperation on social safety nets. Social protection in ASEAN was traditionally assumed to be provided by a mix of economic growth, labour market flexibility, informal social safety nets such as support from extended families and communities, and enterprise policies such as provision of social services and long-term employment (Kawai, 2000, p. 11). Social policy issues were not discussed in the ASEAN or ASEAN+3 (Low, 2002/03, p. 34), until the second meeting of the ASEAN Senior Officials on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication held in Kuala Lumpur 29–30 October 1998 (ASEAN, 1998a). It was agreed that an ASEAN Task Force on Social Safety Nets be set up with the goal of developing and implementing an ASEAN Action Plan on Social Safety Nets to alleviate the impact of the crisis, specifically focusing on poverty issues and the development of the rural populace (ASEAN, 1998c). A ‘Hanoi Plan of Action’ was also adopted by the Sixth ASEAN Summit Meeting, 15–16 December 1998, agreeing to implement the Social Safety Nets Action Plan on an urgent basis (ASEAN, 1998b). In response to the Hanoi Plan, AusAID collaborated with ASEAN for capacity-building to implement the social safety net programmes. As part of the ASEAN-Australia Social Safety Nets project, a number of seminars were held:

Targeting and rapid assessment for social programmes, May 2001, Indonesia; Social service delivery and related operational issues, August 2001, the

Philippines; Role of national and local agencies in Social Safety Nets, November 2001,

Thailand; Partnerships in social policy, March 2002, Malaysia.

Following these, a regional website was to be developed to provide a forum for sharing information and recommendations generated by the policy workshops, provide links to other relevant sites, and set up a discussion board for electronic dialogue. A project on Training of Facilitators on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication, which was integrated with the ASEAN-UNDP ASP6 project on Recommended Alternative Strategies for ASEAN Member Countries in Designing and Implementing Effective Social Safety Nets Programs, was implemented in June 2001 in Indonesia (ASEAN, 2002a). 2 The SARS outbreak Among regional institutions, ASEAN led the way in responding to the SARS outbreak (BusinessWorld, 2004). An ASEAN+3 Ministers of Health Special Meeting on SARS was held in Kuala Lumpur on 26 April 2003, followed on 29 April by an emergency Special ASEAN-China (plus Hong Kong) Leaders

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Meeting initiated by Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, joined by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong Tung Chee-Hwa. This meeting discussed regional mechanisms to detect and respond quickly to pandemics, including installation of surveillance systems. It agreed on a common strategy to combat SARS, putting in place a series of coordinated measures to keep borders open while ensuring that the scourge would be contained. Apart from urging greater understanding of the nature of the virus and its transmission, they pledged to set up a network to share information on SARS and have standardized health declaration cards and temperature checks for air passengers. Thus an ASEAN citizen would not be denied entry to another ASEAN country on suspicion of SARS, but given access to medical assistance. To be sure, some ASEAN countries that did not have a SARS problem were reluctant to impose health screening measures. But they were eventually persuaded on the grounds that without such measures an ASEAN containment strategy would be jeopardized. Other measures included information-sharing on SARS, contact tracing and follow-up procedures. A hotline was set up among the health ministers and their senior officials to facilitate communication in emergencies; and ASEAN and the China and Hong Kong health authorities were in constant contact. They also adopted an ‘isolate and contain’ strategy to ensure that those not affected by SARS were able to travel smoothly within South-East Asia. A flurry of meetings followed over the next six months, demonstrating the degree to which South-East Asian governments cooperated against SARS. A Special ASEAN+3 Senior Labour Officials Meeting (SLOM) on SARS was convened in July 2003 in Manila to discuss the impact of SARS on labour, employment, human resources and occupational safety and health, including the role of the social partners in easing the impact on retrenchments, unemployment and workers’ protection. Representatives from WHO, ILO and ADB were also present and provided updates on their respective measures to control SARS and its impact on the region. At the May 2003 ASEAN+3 Aviation Forum on the Prevention and Containment of SARS in the Philippines, participants agreed to undertake measures for the screening of departing and arriving passengers and standardized health declaration cards. The ASEAN+3 countries and their partners took the lead in drafting the common resolution on SARS adopted by the 56th World Health Assembly at its May 2003 session in Geneva. And in June 2003, China and ASEAN worked out the Entry-Exit Quarantine Action Plan for Controlling the Spread of SARS.

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Two months from the outbreak, the health ministers declared South-East Asia a SARS-free region, free of local transmission, the last case being isolated on 11 May 2003. They urged countries that had issued travel advisories to South-East Asia to withdraw them, pledging to continue their prevention and control measures and to maintain full vigilance. Looking ahead, the ministers adopted a Framework ASEAN+3 Action Plan on Prevention and Control of SARS and other Infectious Diseases with the overall objective of building the region’s capability to respond to future outbreaks like SARS. The Action Plan has four priority areas: guidelines for international travel; ASEAN SARS Containment Information Network; capacity-building for the region to respond to future outbreaks of new and emerging diseases; public education. By mid-June, South-East Asian countries were planning preventive measures against future outbreaks. In June 2003 Malaysia hosted the WHO Global Conference on SARS in Kuala Lumpur to review the epidemiological, clinical management and laboratory findings on SARS, and discuss global control strategies. When SARS had receded in November 2003, ASEAN+3 launched a new hotline as part of a plan to control communicable diseases in the region – designed to halt the spread of new epidemics and prevent the return of SARS. The meeting agreed to develop Thailand as a centre for the monitoring of epidemics, with each country establishing central information centres that would be linked by the hotline. The success of these urgently arranged meetings can be attributed to the strong shared economic interest among ASEAN countries to eradicate SARS. The crisis highlighted regional interdependence and common vulnerabilities. Shortcomings notwithstanding, South-East Asia with its established mechanisms of dialogue partnerships does provide a framework for discussing and addressing transnational threats. These efforts helped the region to bounce back quickly from the epidemic, with its economy recovering to a healthy 5% GDP growth in 2003, compared with 4.5% in 2002, riding on a strong second half of the year.

3 The Indian Ocean tsunami

The tsunami disaster triggered an enormous and overwhelming outpouring of aid from international public and private sources. The Bush administration pledged an initial US$15 million, later increased to US$350 million. The Pentagon’s aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and eleven other warships carrying supplies, helicopters and troops were deployed to the western Sumatran coast to provide relief. An additional 1,500 US Marines headed for Sri Lanka (Elliott, 2005). The European

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Union pledged US$578 million. Australia contributed an upfront US$45 million, and a US$750 million Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development (AIPRD) programme – a five-year commitment of US$375 million in grants and US$375 million in concession loans over forty years – the largest single aid package in Australia’s history. This will be in addition to Australia’s ongoing Development Cooperation Program and Defence Cooperation Program, bringing the provision of aid to Indonesia to a total of about US$1.5 billion over the next five years (AusAID, 2004). Germany pledged US$660 million, Japan US$500 million, Canada US$354 million, India US$183 million, Norway US$175 million, Italy US$91 million, Denmark US$74 million, China US$63 million, and the World Bank offered US$250 million. In all, about US$13 billion was pledged in aid around the world. The United Nations has estimated that reconstruction work across the whole affected region will take about five years, and could cost US$9 billion. While the role of non-Asian actors such as the European Union and the United States in providing disaster assistance has been and remains critical, one important aspect of tsunami aid that stands out is the special contribution of some Asian countries: Japan, India, China and Singapore. Japan’s half-billion dollar disaster aid package is the highest offered by any country. China’s US$63 million may seem insignificant by comparison. The tsunami may move China more to enhance its capacity for international disaster assistance in order to keep up with the United States and other major powers. India, itself a victim, has offered some US$22.5 million in aid to Sri Lanka, Maldives, Thailand and Indonesia. Singapore’s role also stood out; the tsunami has seen the Republic mount its most elaborate humanitarian assistance effort, involving its military and civil defence elements. Along with the generous assistance provided by Malaysia, it signifies the emergence of newly developed smaller Asian countries in providing material assistance to their neighbours hit by tragedy. While the main relief efforts came from countries outside the region, such as Australia, China, India, Japan and the United States, South-East Asia contributed whatever they could. Malaysia deployed a 250-man police contingent to Aceh and planned employment assistance for Indonesians affected by the tsunami, as well as providing engineering expertise in areas designated by Indonesia as requiring assistance. Singapore donated US$30 million from government and private donations and was also one of the first to send a 900-strong contingent to Aceh, deploying aircraft, landing ships and helicopters as well as opening its air and naval facilities to all countries helping in the massive relief and reconstruction effort. Brunei donated US$150,000 for tsunami relief to Indonesia. Thailand, which had

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been badly hit by the tsunami with the loss of over 5,000 lives, many of whom were foreign tourists, had politely declined a Japanese offer for financial assistance worth US$20 million and instead recommended that it be sent to those countries Tokyo deemed needier. Cash-strapped countries such as the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and the Philippines provided token assistance in the form of cash donations or the deployment of medical missions. The Lao PDR raised US$55,000 for countries hit by the tsunami while the Philippines sent medical missions that had the added task of locating Filipino victims (ASEAN, 2005). In January 2005, a Special ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting in Jakarta discussed coordination of international relief efforts and the creation of a regional early warning system. ASEAN’s proposed Resolution on ‘Strengthening Emergency Relief, Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Prevention on Aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Disaster’ was adopted by consensus by the UN General Assembly on 19 January 2005. This would establish and utilize military and civilian personnel in disaster relief operation, an ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Centre, and the ASEAN Disaster Information Sharing and Communication Network. This was followed by the Phuket Ministerial Declaration on Regional Cooperation on Tsunami Early Warning Arrangements in Thailand on 29 January 2005. At this meeting, expertise was contributed in the Pacific region through the International Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific (ITSU) coordinated by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the Tropical Cyclones Centre of Reunion Island and the European meteorological satellite ‘Meteosat’, as well as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) under the Intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations. Immediate steps were taken to enhance early warning capabilities in the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia and to establish interim warning arrangements and the strengthening and upgrading of national systems, while moving towards a coordinated regional system. Networking through the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management (ACDM) and the Indian Ocean Commission to upgrade knowledge and capacities and share best practices, the ASEAN Specialized Meteorological Centre (ASMC) and the Asian Disaster Reduction Centre, the Indian Global Ocean Observing System – all developed within the UN’s international strategy coordinated by the IOC. The most important proactive measure adopted by ASEAN has been the creation of a Regional Tsunami Early Warning Centre in Thailand. But cooperation with international agencies has been the main thrust of ASEAN’s approach to disaster management. Thus, in April 2005, the United Nations Development Programme officially opened its ASEAN regional centre for coordinating disaster preparedness, with the tasks of coordinating and supporting responses region-wide in partnership

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with UN agencies and NGOs in disaster preparedness and mitigation work, together with conducting assessments when disasters strike. There have been other forms of regional and international cooperation in response to the tsunami. These include APEC’s decision to establish a Virtual Task Force for Emergency Preparedness in March 2005. The Virtual Task Force would strengthen coordination efforts among APEC Member Economies in relation to disaster relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction in disaster-stricken areas (APEC, 2005). Moreover, in June 2005, APEC, partnering the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), sponsored a workshop in Honolulu to share resources, experiences and technologies with affected economies.22 Its key objectives are to provide an overview of the All Hazards Early Warning System with special emphasis on inter-operability among the national systems currently being developed in tsunami-affected countries, showcase best practices and case studies and share tools, science and system integration in all hazards risk reduction from the US and Asia-Pacific, while promoting capacity-building for an effective response to a range of natural and man-made disasters and emergencies. The tsunami underscored the need to rethink the role of Asian states in humanitarian action. It highlighted the absence of regional mechanisms, whether tsunami early warning systems or standby arrangements to provide rapid response to humanitarian disasters. It clearly showed the need for the region to develop new and more focused mechanisms to deal with humanitarian emergencies. The regional Tsunami Warning System is one such initiative. But regional organizations, in cooperation with international agencies, must also acquire expertise in disaster prevention and management. There is an urgent need for a regional coordination centre for humanitarian aid. Some have suggested the creation of a regional disaster assistance force, but more practically, Asian states could undertake training towards greater coordination of relief efforts, including earmarking and joint training of civilian and military resources before disaster strikes. A regional disaster management fund – the natural disaster equivalent of the proposed Asian regional monetary fund – could also be explored. And civil society in Asia should develop mechanisms and institutions for transnational humanitarian assistance. Regional governments could encourage the role of such institutions by subsidizing and supporting them.

22 Asia Pacific All Hazards Workshop, 6–10 June 2005, Honolulu (http://www.apec.org//content/apec/asia_pacific_all_hazards.html).

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IV Conclusions and policy recommendations

The concept of human security confronts the policy community in South-East Asia with several challenges. The first is to address scepticism about the need for this concept in view of earlier and ongoing attempts in the region at redefining security and giving it a broader meaning. The second stems from the divergence between South-East Asia and the West in understanding what human security actually means, and what sort of issues it should cover. A third is how to introduce the concept into policy debates and approaches. Some analysts and policy-makers in South-East Asia argue that the region does not need a concept of human security because, in this part of the world, attempts to redefine and broaden the concept of human security are nothing new (Acharya, 2004a). After all, what is known in Asian academic and policy circles as ‘comprehensive security’ was articulated in Japan and South-East Asia in the 1960s and 1970s. But comprehensive security, while paying attention to economic development and social stability, was not really focused on the ‘security of the human person’. In the case of Japan, it was used to legitimize higher defence spending beyond what was mandated by its peace constitution. In Singapore, it served the country’s defence mobilization needs, being part of its ‘Total Defence’ strategy. In South-East Asia, associated notions of comprehensive security such as national and regional ‘resilience’ coined by the Suharto regime in Indonesia and adopted as a general ideology by the members of ASEAN, became an integral aspect of the strategy of regime preservation. In short, although the concept of ‘comprehensive security’ predated that of human security, comprehensive security focused strongly on regime legitimation and identifying and addressing non-military threats to state security. It was not people-centred per se. Hence, the concept of human security that underscores the centrality of human dignity and does not put the interests of the state or the society above that of the individual or the ‘self’ constitutes a distinctive approach compared with earlier attempts at redefining security in the region. The concept of human security reflects new forces and trends in international relations. Globalization ensures that the national security of states can be challenged by forces other than foreign armies, including forces that endanger lives while leaving the physical boundaries of states intact. Governments can no longer survive, much less achieve legitimacy, by citing their performance through rates of

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economic growth or social and political stability and by providing for defence against external military threats. Democratization empowers new actors, such as civil society, which must be accounted for in the security framework. Human security in this sense reflects real world developments that could not be captured by the narrow and military-focused idea of national security. This leads to the issue of differing interpretations of what the concept means. The main differences in understanding and application of human security are between those who associate it with reducing human costs of conflict and violence, as was the case with the earlier formulations by the Canadian Government, and those who take a broader view, including issues of economic development and well-being. This broader view seems more popular among Asian governments, such as Japan, although the UNDP also advocated a broader view of human security. Some people see debates about the meaning and interpretation of human security as an unwelcome distraction from policy advocacy and action. But such debates are necessary, because policy formulation to promote human security is closely associated with the way the concept is defined and put into operation.

Promoting human security suffers from a deficiency of educational toolkits and resources. Despite the proliferation of literature on security studies, the number of texts that can be used to teach courses and seminars on human security remain extremely few. Security studies in South-East Asia are still essentially wedded to the notion of national security, although recent initiatives, such as the Ford Foundation supported Non-Traditional Security Issues in Asia project,23 have contributed to greater awareness and literature on human security issues. But there is enormous scope for innovation. It will be really interesting to have a text that takes human security as its central organizing framework around which other elements of security, including military balances, weapons of mass destruction and economic development, could be framed. The teaching of human security also calls for greater reliance on case studies, including micro-studies of conflict and poverty zones around the world, which are not readily available in mainstream undergraduate textbooks on international relations and security studies. It challenges us to develop a more transnational teaching community that includes those with more hands-on experience, including experience with international organizations and the NGO community. The key normative issue for the promotion of human security in South-East Asia of course concerns the non-interference principle. A cherished norm of ASEAN, non-

23 For details of this project, see Emmers et al. (2006).

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interference has been under challenge since the Asian economic crisis in 1997. More recently, ASEAN’s willingness to discuss the domestic political situation in Myanmar attests to further pressure on the norm. The transnational dangers facing the region have done much to dilute the norm, but more debate and discussion is needed to institutionalize new policies in support of human security that might require relaxation of the strict interpretation of non-interference.

There are several issues to take into consideration when discussing the promotion of human security in policy discourse as well as in educational institutions.

First, any concept of human security, in order to be acceptable to South-East Asia, must combine ‘freedom from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’. The debate about which concept is the more important and relevant is becoming sterile and unhelpful. Human security is what states and peoples make it and attempting to impose arbitrary limits or boundary markers on its scope is bound to be futile. What is more important is to view these divergent understandings not as mutually exclusive, but as complementary parts of a total package. Each is inadequate in the absence of the other. Some well-meaning advocates of human security want to focus on a narrower definition that excludes freedom from want and downgrades the focus on reducing wartime human suffering. While this approach may have the virtue of making the concept more precise and hence more ‘measurable’, it is also divorced from reality. To speak of human security in Asia, where poverty and authoritarianism remain pervasive maladies, without bringing in the question of political rights and economic vulnerabilities, is to severely undermine the utility of the concept in moving the region away from the traditional understanding of security and devising policy tools to institutionalize the new understanding at national and regional levels.

Second, it is important to recognize, as has been done by the report of the Commission on Human Security, Human Security Now (CHS, 2003), that the state remains an indispensable aspect of human security. While national security is about protection of the state (its sovereignty and territorial integrity), human security is about protecting the people. But what does protecting the people actually mean? On the surface, there should be no contradiction between security of the state and security of the people; a strong state with resources and policy apparatus is needed to ensure the protection of the people. In fact, the report of the Commission on Human Security seems to acknowledge this point when it states that ‘Human security complements state security, enhances human rights and strengthens human development.’ But whether state security and human security conflict with each other depends very much on the nature of the government. In many developing countries, as well as in some Western countries in the wake of September 11,

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human security as security for the people can and does get threatened by actions of their own governments. As Human Security Now says: ‘The state remains the fundamental purveyor of security. Yet it often fails to fulfil its security obligations – and at times has even become a source of threat to its own people.’ Any link between human security and national security should be contingent on the nature of the government.

To fully address the conditions and threats that people face, the focus in human security must shift from looking at ‘what’ to promote to ‘how’ this should be promoted. The ‘what to promote’ remains definitional. The Commission on Human Security report of 2003 focuses on which human elements of security, rights or development to strengthen. There is relative silence on modes of achieving progress in advancing human security. The development of normative frameworks, and ‘translating them into concrete policies and actions’ is mooted, but the actors and catalysts that will be the agents of change are not explored (CHS, 2003, p. 26). In other words, there is now a need to shift attention from measurement of human security to promotion of human security measures.

In South-East Asia, much of the discourse on human security remains couched in capacity-building and empowerment terms. As in Human Security Now, there is also a broad consensus among those conversant in human security language that this concept should be mainstreamed in the work of global, regional and national security organizations. The prioritized targets for this new conception of security are identified as groups involved in violent conflicts. Two examples of resources already devoted to promoting human security are the UN Trust Fund for Human Security and the bilateral Grassroots Human Security Grants, both established by the government of Japan. Japan has set aside more than US$200 million to the UN Trust Fund, and also contributed about US$120 million in fiscal year 2003 for bilateral grants to further human security. The destination of these funds is mainly local communities and NGOs working in developing countries.24 The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is also involved in spearheading programmes to promote human security. The technical cooperation programmes, equipment provision schemes, emergency disaster relief teams and community empowerment programmes are designed to further human security by targeting people at grass-roots level in developing countries for the betterment of their livelihood and welfare. In 1999 alone, Japan’s total overseas development assistance amounted to US$15.385 billion (JICA, n.d.). JICA has also incorporated the Millennium Development Goals that are grounded in human security into their

24 The Trust Fund for Human Security for the ‘Human-centered’ 21st Century, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/human_secu/t_fund21.pdf

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operations in country and sector programmes (JICA, 2003). Canada has also undertaken a major human security programme, both domestically and externally.

Regional governments in South-East Asia have yet to develop a consensus on the adoption of human security into their multilateral agenda and agree on specific measures to promote the idea. It is clear that, until now, regional cooperation on human security in Asia focuses primarily on economic rather than political challenges. As at the national level, ‘freedom from want’ has taken precedence over ‘freedom from fear’ in the development of regional cooperation to promote human security. Hence there is no Asian or ASEAN mechanism for human rights protection, despite the development of a dialogue to create such a mechanism within ASEAN. ASEAN countries have also not taken up the issue of small arms, child soldiers, landmines ban and other aspects of human security that conform to the Western definitions of the concept. Instead, whatever cooperation that exists addresses managing the adverse consequences of the Asian economic crisis. ASEAN’s response here involves restructuring institutional mechanisms for ASEAN social development cooperation and the creation of several human resource programmes, for example the ASEAN Occupational Safety and Health Network, which attempts to promote human security through standardizing the guidelines for workplace safety.

The role of civil society organizations in the promotion of human security deserves attention, especially because they address human insecurity both in terms of ‘freedom from want’ and ‘freedom from fear’. Among the South-East Asian NGOs who have been particularly active in promoting freedom from fear at regional level is Forum-Asia, the largest and most prominent transnational NGO in the region. This group seeks to ‘facilitate collaboration among human rights organizations in the region so as to develop a regional response on issues of common concern’ (Forum-Asia, n.d.). Activities include monitoring and reporting on human rights violations, conducting human rights educational activities, and organizing fact-finding missions and trial observations (Forum-Asia, 2000; 2001). The Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, along with Malaysia-based Third World Network, has been at the forefront of campaigns to create greater awareness of the dangers to ‘freedom from want’, especially those posed by globalization, and has organized protests against the exploitation of labour and environment by multinationals. A variety of other NGOs operating at national and regional levels have addressed more specific needs that may be considered as part of a human security framework. The call for human security, espoused both by Western countries and Japan, which entails recognition of threats to the safety and dignity of the individual, provides a conceptual justification for closer involvement of civil society and social movements in regional cooperation that had traditionally been

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the exclusive preserve of governments. In general, however, governments in Asia have been reticent about cooperating with NGOs in promoting human security. And human security cooperation remains subject to the state-centric norms of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of states. This report proposes the following additional recommendations as a way of promoting human security in South-East Asia: First, the concept of non-traditional security or human security can provide a useful conceptual basis for refocusing. These concepts recast security as security for the people (as opposed to states or governments) and pay attention to non-military threats to survival and well-being of societies including poverty, environmental degradation and disease, which are linked to both human and natural forces. Regional think tanks should find ways of reconciling the concepts of comprehensive and non-traditional security, which have already found broad acceptance in the region, with the concept of human security. Research on human security issues by think tanks such as ASEAN-ISIS and universities should be supplemented by dissemination and educational strategies. A regional council of educators at both secondary school and university levels could work with national bodies in ASEAN member states to develop curricula and teaching materials on human security issues, including trends in conflict and violence in regional conflict zones, the scale of human misery caused by poverty, economic underdevelopment and inequality in the region, and the danger posed by transnational challenges such as pandemics, natural disasters and environmental degradation. Think tanks should also consider issuing an annual State of Human Security in South-East Asia, a venture that should attract support from foreign donor agencies. Second, the countries of the region, and the regional organization ASEAN, should embrace the ‘humanitarian assistance’ (if not humanitarian intervention, which has proved too controversial in the region) through statements and declarations in much the same way as comprehensive security has become an integral part of ASEAN security literature and discourse. The ASEAN Charter, which is now being developed by a group of eminent persons appointed by ASEAN leaders, could be an important vehicle for enshrining the concept of human security as a basic normative framework for ASEAN. Until now, South-East Asia has resisted the concept of humanitarian intervention, which has been adopted by Western and even African regional groupings. Yet humanitarian assistance and cooperative action in coping with complex emergencies can serve as a new rallying point for Asian

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regional groups and to some extent offset their resistance to the political notion of humanitarian intervention. Humanitarian assistance offers a less contentious and accurate way of describing the response to human security challenges. Countries should ensure greater transparency and information-sharing on challenges to human security. This involves early warning of natural disasters, pandemics, terrorist movements and financial volatility. Some mechanisms for transparency are already evolving. One example is the peer-review mechanism set up by ASEAN after the economic crisis. Another example is the ongoing effort to develop an early warning system for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. During the discussion at the ASEAN-UNESCO Concept Workshop on Human Security in South-East Asia (Jakarta, 25–27 October 2006), the following points emerged concerning the role of ASEAN in promoting human security. ASEAN has already undertaken several initiatives that speak to a broader notion

of human security. Examples cited include recent agreements of disaster management and relief, or plans to make ASEAN a drug-free region by 2015. The ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime addresses certain threats to human security, such as illicit drug trafficking, trafficking in persons, arms smuggling, terrorism and various forms of economic crime. The ASEAN Action Plan on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication addresses economic threats to human security.

ASEAN will do well to harmonize its ‘comprehensive security’ approach with

the broader concept of human security (freedom from want) now prevailing at international level.

At this stage, it would be unrealistic to expect ASEAN to embrace the notion of

human security formally through its charter or institutional mechanisms. For example, the ASEAN Charter will not mention the term ‘human security’, although it may be possible to include references to respect for international humanitarian law by member states. It is more feasible politically for ASEAN to take a ‘human development’ approach to human security, rather than the Canadian formulation which focuses on freedom from fear. The latter approach is not feasible at this juncture, at least through the ASEAN mechanism. ‘The personal level of human security – when we talk about human rights, human dignity, and spirituality – that I am afraid is still the domain of national governments.’

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While human security is not the same as state security – on this point, there was consensus – national security and human security are complementary, rather than mutually exclusive. States would have the ‘primary responsibility’ in promoting human security, both at national level and through regional and international cooperation.

ASEAN is unlikely to adopt the principle of humanitarian intervention, or

‘responsibility to protect’ being promoted by Canada and other Western nations. Instead of seeking exceptions to non-interference, which is politically sensitive, it may be better to use the phrase, as one participant suggested, ‘mutual support in times of crisis’, which is ‘perfectly acceptable to all, and is already on the ground’.

On this basis, other suggestions could be made as follows: The ASEAN Secretariat could compile a list of various ASEAN agreements and declarations that speak to the broader notion of human security. This would be consistent with the claims made by several ASEAN participants at the 2006 Concept Workshop that while ASEAN has not formally adopted human security as a goal (at least the term itself), it has already taken measures on the ground to address human security problems in the region, including those posed by regional crises. ASEAN should also work in cooperation with other Asian and Asia-Pacific regional organizations to promote human security. Until recently, these groups remained focused on such traditional agendas as trade liberalization or addressing traditional security issues, including inter-state tensions. For example, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia’s only security organization, focused primarily on measures such as confidence-building, preventive diplomacy and conflict resolution. More recently, ARF and APEC have turned their attention to fighting terrorism. APEC, ARF and ASEAN have now increasingly turned their attention to non-traditional and human security issues. This is a welcome shift that needs to be further encouraged and strengthened with new institutional mechanisms. Regional organizations such as APEC, ARF, ASEAN and ADB can cooperatively play an important role in human security promotion. APEC has three pillars, of which economic and technical cooperation could be structured to advance human security (APEC, n.d.). Some of its relevant working groups and committees that could promote institutional arrangements to promote human security include the Senior Officials Meeting Committee on Economic and Technical Cooperation, the

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Beijing Initiative on Human Capacity Building, the APEC Food System (which includes elements of Rural Infrastructural Development), the Gender Focal Point Network, and the Sustainable Development Working Group. Some of the ASEAN and ARF dialogues and programmes could also be specified to promote human security. Recent activities such as the Seminar on Economic Security for Asia-Pacific in the First Decades of the 21st Century (February 2002), the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Seminar (December 2002), the Workshop on Changing Security Perception of the ARF Countries and the ARF Security Policy Conference (November 2004) seek to draft frameworks to advance human security (ASEAN, 2002b; 2003; 2004). ASEAN could designate its Social Development Unit as a Human Security Unit to further advance the idea of human security through concrete measures. A coordinating mechanism among these various regional bodies could be a useful device for implementing measures consistent with the promotion of human security in the region. The creation of new institutions to support human security could be a third area of policy action. An educational response could be a committee to promote human security studies in the academic curricula of schools and universities. At the political level, ASEAN countries should consider setting up an ASEAN Human Security Council, comprising eminent persons, experts and members of NGOs. The task of the AHSC would be: to identify and study challenges to human security in the region, consider appropriate coping mechanisms and recommend both preventive and reactive measures to governments. Moreover, the AHSC should form a Legal Committee on Human Security whose main function would be to review the participation of member states in all relevant international treaties that impinge upon the notion of human security, such as human rights treaties and conventions on small arms and light weapons. Last but not least, coordinating mechanisms for response to humanitarian crises should be developed by Asia, including South-East Asia. Asia is a diverse continent and the interests and capacities of states to provide humanitarian aid vary widely, depending on levels of economic development and civilian and military logistical and personnel capabilities. But a number of Asian countries increasingly have the resources and capabilities to undertake significant humanitarian action, hence it is timely to examine their interests and capabilities for humanitarian action, not just at the national level but also in cooperation with the UN and within the framework of regional agencies. To this end, ASEAN could convene an

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international workshop to examine the threat to national and human security posed by complex humanitarian emergencies in the region; the experience and policy framework of states in undertaking humanitarian action; national capabilities for humanitarian action and the sharing of best practices; modalities of cooperation between UN agencies such as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and national governments; and how existing and new regional mechanisms for humanitarian action could work better together in cooperation with UN agencies.

********* Tables

1. GDP per capita (PPP US$)

1999 2001 2002 2003 Brunei 17 868 19 210 19 210 19 210 Cambodia 1 361 1 860 2 060 2 078 Indonesia 2 857 2 940 3 230 3 361 Lao PDR 1 471 1 620 1 720 1 759 Malaysia 8 209 8 750 9 120 9 230 Myanmar 1 027 1 027 1 027 Philippines 3 805 3 840 4 170 4 321 Singapore 20 767 22 680 24 040 24 481 Thailand 6 132 6 400 7 010 7 595 Viet Nam 1 860 2 070 2 300 2 490

Source: UNDP (2001; 2003; 2004; 2005a).

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2. Human Development Indicators

1999 2001 2002 2003 Brunei 0.857 0.872 0.867 0.866 Cambodia 0.541 0.556 0.568 0.571 Indonesia 0.677 0.682 0.692 0.697 Japan 0.928 0.932 0.938 0.943 Korea, Rep. of 0.875 0.879 0.888 0.901 Lao PDR 0.476 0.525 0.534 0.545 Malaysia 0.774 0.79 0.793 0.796 Myanmar 0.551 0.549 0.551 0.578 Philippines 0.749 0.751 0.753 0.758 Singapore 0.876 0.884 0.902 0.907 Thailand 0.757 0.768 0.768 0.778 Viet Nam 0.682 0.688 0.681 0.704

Source: UNDP (2001; 2003; 2004; 2005a).

3. Military expenditure as a percentage of GDP

1990 1993 1996 1999 2001 2002 2003 Brunei ?E 6.0E 6.4 6.8E 7.1 6.6 Cambodia 3.1 3.3 5.3 3.9 3 2.7 2.5 China 2.7E 2.1E 1.8E 2.1E 2.3 [2.4] [2.3] India 2.7 2.4 2.1 2.3 2.5 2.2 2.1 Indonesia 1.8E 1.6E 1.6E 0.9 1.1 1.2 1.5 Japan 0.9 0.9 0.9 1 1 1 1 Korea, Rep. of 3.7 3.3 2.9 2.8 2.8 2.4 2.5 Lao PDR ? ? 2.9 2.2 2.1 Malaysia 2.6 2.9 2.4 2.1 2.2 2.4 2.8 Myanmar 3.4 3.5 3.5 2 2.4 1.2 Philippines 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.1 1 1 0.9 Singapore 4.8 4.3 4.5 5.4 5 5.1 5.2 Thailand 2.3 2.3 2.1 1.8 1.4 1.4 1.3 Viet Nam 7.9 2.3 ? 3.1 7.2 [ ] = SIPRI estimate

Source: SIPRI (2005).

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4. Military expenditure US$ millions (2000 constant prices)

1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2003 2004 Brunei [302] [256] 275 [298] 292 Cambodia 77.1 66.8 139 123 108 104 105China [12 277] [14 343] [15 500] [20 200] [30 700] [33 100] [35 400]India 8 729 8 822 9 286 11 364 12 342 12 698 15 059Indonesia [2 121] [2 232] [2 820] 1 701 2 363 3 200 3 522Japan 37 642 39 867 41 269 41 439 42 619 42 729 42 442Korea, Rep. of 10 112 11 545 13 175 12 672 14 487 14 860 15 488Lao PDR 44.6 36.6 Malaysia 1 184 1 702 1 886 1 762 2 263 2 882 2 707Myanmar 19 690 22 788 27 492 18 661 16 425 Philippines 686 686 832 714 739 750 756Singapore 2 249 2 552 3 461 4 481 4 682 4 730 4 817Thailand 2 242 2 597 2 924 1 907 1 884 1 857 [1 761]Viet Nam 1 296 450 [ ] = SIPRI estimate

Source: SIPRI (2005).

5. Military and social expenditures in South-East Asia as percentage of GDP

Militarya Health Education 2000 2001 2002 2003 2000b 2002c 2000d 2000–02e Brunei [6.5] [7.1] 6.6 2.5 2.7 4.8 9.1 Cambodia 3.3 3 2.7 2.5 2 2.1 1.9 1.8 Indonesia 1.1 1.1 1.2 1.5 0.6 1.2 – 1.2 Lao PDR 2 2.1 1.3 1.5 2.3 2.8 Malaysia 1.7 2.2 2.4 2.8 1.5 2 6.2 8.1 Myanmar 2.1 1.7 1.2 0.4 0.4 0.5 Philippines 1.1 1 1 0.9 1.6 1.1 1.8 3.1 Singapore 4.7 5 5.1 5.2 1.2 1.3 4.2 Thailand 1.4 1.5 1.4 1.3 2.1 3.1 5.4 5.2 Viet Nam 7.2 1.3 1.5 –

[ ] = SIPRI estimate

Sources a. SIPRI (2005). b. World Bank Health, Nutrition, and Population Statistics (HNPStats). c. UNDP (2005a). d. World Bank Education Statistics Database. e. UNDP (2005a).

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6. Selected anti-terrorism measures involving South-East Asian countries

Parties Date Measures/ text

Description Comments

ASEAN-United States of America Joint Declaration for Cooperation to Combat International Terrorisma

USA, ASEAN

1 August 2002

‘a framework for cooperation to prevent, disrupt and combat international terrorism through the exchange and flow of information, intelligence and capacity-building’

– provides a framework to cooperate in disrupting terrorism – share information/ intelligence – joint operations – block terrorist access to funds – regular meetings to monitor compliance at ministerial level

No reference to US deployments (objections from Indonesia and Viet Nam, which got the agreement to recognize ‘the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity and non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other states’, the guiding principles of ASEAN diplomacy) Non-binding

2001 ASEAN Declaration on Joint Action to Counter Terrorismb

ASEAN 5 Novem-ber 2001

‘[v]iew acts of terrorism in all its forms and manifestation, committed wherever, whenever and by whomsoever, as a profound threat to international peace and security which require concerted action to protect and defend all

– acknowledge link between poverty and terrorism – improve national mechanism to fight terrorism – ratification of all anti-terrorist conventions – more cooperation among law agencies – better exchange of information

Symbolic gesture as the question of implementation was not discussed

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peoples and the peace and security of the world’

ARF Statement on Measures Against Terrorist Financingc

ARF members

30 July 2002

‘we will address ways and means to cooperate together in the fight against terrorism’

– freezing terrorist assets – implemen-tation of international standards – international cooperation on the exchange of information and outreach – technical assistance – compliance and reporting Formed an Inter-Sessional Group (ISG) on counter- Terrorism and Transnational Crime (co-chaired by Malaysia and US)

Find out more

Joint communiqué of the Special ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Terrorismd

ASEAN 20–21 May 2002

‘unequivocally condemn acts of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and underscore the urgency for a cohesive and united approach to effectively combat terrorism’

– meeting for ministers of the interior and home affairs – aims at concrete measures with a series of projects by member states – training by Malaysia on intelligence, by Singapore on bomb detection, by Indonesia with a workshop on terrorism

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Work Programme on Terrorism to implement the ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime

ASEAN 17 May 2002

– share information – disseminate information on the relevant laws, bilateral, international treaties on terrorism – enhance cooperation between ASEAN and specialized organizations (such as ASEANPOL) – ratify anti-terrorism conventions – criminalize terrorism

Adopted at an ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime (AMMTC)

Trilateral anti-terrorism pact

Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines

7 May 2002

‘We formalized formal contacts in one umbrella agreement to cover quite a number of areas of cooperation, not only in the area of terrorism proper, but also expanding it into piracy as well as money laundering’e

– anti-terrorism exercises as well as combined operations to hunt suspected terrorists, the setting up of hotlines and sharing of airline passenger lists – aimed at speeding intelligence exchanges between the three neighbours

Pact is open to other states

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APEC Leaders Statement on Counter-terrorismf

APEC 21 October 2001

‘Leaders deem it imperative to strengthen international cooperation at all levels in combating terrorism in a comprehensive manner and affirm that UN should play a major role in this regard, especially taking into account the importance of all relevant UN resolutions’

– cooperation in enhancing security at customs, limiting the fallout from terrorist attacks – enhance ports, aircraft and aircraft security – strengthening APEC activities in the area of critical sector protection, including tele-communications, transportation, health and energy

Notes a. ASEAN-United States of America Joint Declaration for Cooperation to Combat International

Terrorism, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, 1 August 2002. b. ASEAN Declaration on Joint Action to Counter Terrorism, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei,

5 November 2001. c. ARF chairman’s statement is available at http://www.aseansec.org/amm/progarf1.htm. d. Joint communiqué of the Special ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Terrorism, Kuala Lumpur,

Malaysia, 20–21 May 2002. e. M. Mahathir, cited in Jalil Hamid, Three SE Asian states sign anti-terrorism pact (Reuters

news, available). f. APEC Leaders Statement on Counter-terrorism, 21 October 2001, Shanghai (full text at

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan001701.pdf).

*********

Acknowledgements The author is deeply grateful to Tan Kwoh Jack for research assistance in preparing this study.

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Human security in South-East Asia and the experience of the Commission on Human Security by Surin Pitsuwan Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Member of Parliament, Thailand It is a great honour for me, as a representative of the United Nations Commission on Human Security (CHS), to be invited here, to share with you some of our findings, our concerns, and our vision for the future, for the concept of human security.

As you know the CHS produced its report Human Security Now in 2003. The Commission had been set up in 2001 in response to some of the very disturbing threats occurring at that particular time in our international community. There had been tremendous euphoria in the year 2000, during the Millennium Summit. But the background was one of conflict, loss of life, genocide (Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina). One response was the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, sponsored by the Canadian Government with Norwegian support. But that focused on conflict and violence: small arms, child soldiers, and violence of all sorts that would impact upon human lives. Many of the emerging developing countries were extremely suspicious of that approach, because it impacted upon the very important notion of state sovereignty that the international community has been dealing with since the European settlements of Westphalia. The Japanese Government thus proposed, at the suggestion of the Secretary-General, two guiding lights to work on this very concept: the first was Madam Sadako Ogata (who served ten years as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), whose perspective was that of protection in violent conflict, of post-conflict reconstruction, of protecting people on the move (migrants and refugees). The other side of the new approach was that of human development, and no other expert could have been more suited to the task than Professor Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate in Economics and at that time of Trinity College, Cambridge.

This new approach was as different to the Western approach on protection as it was to development. If the earlier Western approach had been ‘freedom from fear’, the new approach was ‘freedom from fear’, ‘freedom from want’, and ‘freedom to grow to the fullest of one’s potential’. Aristotelian concepts of human development were used such as ‘elements of potentiality’ and ‘elements of fulfilment’, not

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merely Eastern concepts, not merely Southern, but also Western, in the sense that we speak of the fulfilment of human potential. The concept has been accepted in wider and wider circles, but with different understanding, different approaches, different degrees of emphasis – depending on each society, at each stage.

In Thailand, with our Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, we have perhaps the first human security ministry in the world but, unfortunately, with the understanding that human security equals human welfare/social welfare. Human security is more than social welfare. Because social welfare is what the state provides, the individual just waits and receives largesse from the state. But in human security there is an element of fulfilment, there is an element of human rights, there is an element of human development, there is an element of fuller freedom – ‘larger freedom’ in the words of Kofi Annan.25

Human security is more than the absence of violence and conflict. It is not the total absence of state security; it depends on state security: the state has to provide order, the state has to provide protection, the state has to provide the legal process to protect the human beings inside its jurisdiction; not only physical protection, but intellectual and spiritual growth and the well-being of the total human being. Human security is not state-bound, it must be inter-state, because each state is no longer adequate to face the challenges to human security today.

The concept thus has to include state security, it has to include personal security, and it has also to incorporate social compassion. We all aspire to a compassionate and caring society. That is human security in so many words. We also literally aspire to be an open society, but, as Amitav Acharya has pointed out that would have to be rephrased into open societies (plural) relevant to our historical background.

State security, personal security, social compassion, all converge towards the individual: that is towards human security. There are open, empty spaces between the state and its agencies, between different layers of the state – that no man’s land where human security has to compete.

The concept of human security is not exclusive of state security; it is not exclusive of state roles; it incorporates all these in order to focus (or refocus) on the individual, rather than on the sovereignty of the state.

25 In Larger Freedom: Towards Security, Development and Human Rights for All. Report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for decision by Heads of State and Government in September 2005 (http://www.un.org/largerfreedom/).

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The Commission found that was too big a shift in emphasis for any government: to refocus, to make that shift from state boundaries, state power, the air space, the territorial integrity of the state, the fleets of battleships, the squadrons of aircraft, the bombs and the rockets; to focus on the well-being of all citizens.

Here, in South-East Asia, some states were more ready than others to accept, to incorporate, to accommodate the concept of human security. But, as Amitav Acharya said, in our official documents we refer to the same concept without using the actual phrase ‘human security’. And I agree with him too, that recent experiences have brought about a gradual shift to being more and more comfortable with the idea of sharing the responsibility to protect, to prevent calamities, and to rescue our people from their fate; because there are various challenges, threats and calamities coming towards us as a region, not as countries any more.

The Commission has set up an Advisory Board on the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security. To date, the amount of money contributed to the Trust Fund totals US$306 million, exclusively from the Government of Japan, supporting projects built to mainstream the concept of humanity security, to make sure that it is practised and understood, first and foremost among UN agencies.26 So far, the Trust Fund has spent US$227.8 million.

I would say that this new concept is gradually being accepted around the world. South-East Asian countries and ASEAN are not exceptional in their reservations. But we are all affected by the problem of the haze, for example, as what ASEAN is trying to do to manage or resolve the problem would have been considered ten to twenty years ago as interference in the domestic affairs of a member state.

I must thank Amitav Acharya for taking up my statement about the Human Security Caucus, back in 1998. The idea of principal engagement was proposed around that time, but like my proposal it was rejected – it was twelve to fifteen years ahead of its time. In fact, Human Security Caucus was rephrased to Caucus for Social Safety Nets. But even that took ASEAN one full year to agree that it is not a subversive phrase (we found out that poverty eradication ministers had already used it …). My point here is that foreign ministers are the most conservative of all – because we have to deal with sensitive issues of sovereignty, not interfering with state power. Therefore we have to be careful, and we are too

26 The Trust Fund was established in 1999 with the express aim of promoting human security through the protection and empowerment of people and communities threatened in their livelihood, survival and dignity (http://ochaonline.un.org/Default.aspx?alias=ochaonline.un.org/humansecurity). International agencies such as UNICEF, UNDP or UNHCR, as well as national governments, can apply for funding.

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careful, while our colleagues in other ministries have adopted and used the phrase before us.

I am glad that there are to be reports from other regions during the workshop. The Commission has also been promoting meetings and conferences like this. I reported to them that I would be coming here to participate, for the first time ever at the ASEAN Secretariat. This is progress indeed.

We have set up a group called Friends of Human Security, which includes the member states of the Human Security Network, again originated and promoted by Canada, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Thailand, Jordan … Thirty-two members of the group met at the UN recently and promised to work together in order to mainstream the concept into the daily activities of governments and government policies.

We see every indication that the world is evolving – globalization is demanding, integration is putting pressure on all states to think more of how to manage, how to face common challenges, beyond our control, beyond our forecast, beyond our prediction – but we have to cope with all these challenges together. And that is the problem of globalization, and the problem of integration.

Many of us have only seen the plus side of integration (bigger markets, more purchasing power, stronger attraction for foreign investment), but we have forgotten that integration also brings problems with one another. Terrorism, disease, the various other emerging threats that Amitav Acharya has talked about, and many other threats – manmade or natural, beyond our control. The more we are integrated, the more we are vulnerable to each other’s problems. Like the original five members of ASEAN when it expanded, like the European Union, we all open our borders not only to opportunities, but also to the problems and challenges that each member brings with it. Only by refocusing state security, and regional security, on genuine human security will we ever be protected from calamities beyond our control. And in the end human security is nothing more than the fulfilment of state responsibility, because the state is organized in order to protect and promote the welfare of its own citizens. The power of various states has blinded us to this mission, this original preoccupation. Power perpetuates power for its own sake, rather than for its original purpose of protecting human beings, citizens, from the threats and dangers of the state of nature within a civil state for protection and the promotion of welfare.

And, I submit, we are travelling in that direction to fulfil the purpose of the state that we have set up together: from the state of nature to the state of civility.

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PART II

INTERREGIONAL DIALOGUE ON HUMAN SECURITY

Reports by international experts

CENTRAL ASIA

Priorities for human security in Central Asia by Anara Tabyshalieva Director, Kyrgyz Peace Research Center, Kyrgyzstan

It is a great honour, as well as a pleasure, for me to be here today to discuss the priorities for human security in Central Asia, the region comprising Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. These countries, the seven ‘stans’ and Iran, share a common history, culture, resources and human security challenges and responses, derived from their geographic proximity. Formerly isolated from the international community and their neighbours, now all eight countries have tremendous opportunities to make up for lost time by cooperating to overcome their many common problems and issues relating to human security, and acting as concerned Silk Road Central Asian neighbours to devise and promote strategies, projects and policies about human security.

Identifying priorities for human security in Central Asia From Iran to Pakistan, various questions of human security are under heated discussion, although the political leadership and the general population often interpret human security differently. In some cases, state actors consider political liberalization and democratization as a challenge to stability and security in their states and region. A number of political leaders tend to equate human security with state security. A few national governments prioritize the threat of international terrorism, whereas ordinary people believe that poverty and a lack of human security, including daily wants, are the most important problems. In each country of Central Asia, the human security paradigm is understood in different ways; nevertheless people in the eight states discuss local, regional and global challenges to human security and attempt to respond jointly to cross-border problems such as narco-trade, migration, religious extremism, environmental issues, gender inequality and other problems. Six nations, the post-Soviet Central Asian countries and Afghanistan, have adopted new constitutions and national laws reflecting the painful transition to independent development, market economy and democracy. However, a lack of public discussion of human security in diverse societies in Central Asia is obvious.

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The international community offers support in promoting some elements of human security and human rights in each country and disapproves of violation of human rights in Central Asian countries. For example, the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution in 2004 expressing disapproval of Turkmenistan’s restrictions on political freedoms, rights of ethnic minorities and suppression of the media. If a political leadership does not comply with the commitments of international treaties that the country has signed in the area of human rights and human security, international and regional organizations may use other mechanisms to promote human security. One example is the Uzbek leadership’s negative response to providing an independent investigation into the police crackdown of the 2005 Andijan unrest and shooting of hundreds of civilians which prompted the European Union to decrease aid, suspend a cooperation agreement, enforce an arms embargo on Uzbekistan. Targeting human insecurity, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) supports regional cooperation, economic growth and governance in Central Asian countries. Its regional projects are focused on the development of transport, energy and trade, and other issues affecting human security. International NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International Crisis Group, Institute for Reporting War and Peace and others also cover various aspects of human security in the region. Several conferences held under the auspices of UN agencies and in partnership with national governments have promoted the idea of regional cooperation to achieve some elements of human security. In Central Asia, the concept of human security in its broad and all-inclusive aspects was discussed at a round table organized by the Commission on Human Security in Ashgabad, Turkmenistan (2002) and an international conference supported by UNESCO and the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (2005).27 Participants at the Bishkek conference proposed to hold discussions so important for Central Asia on a regular basis at national and regional levels. Despite these acknowledgements, it was not an easy process to bring together country representatives to discuss issues relating to national and human security and the security and development nexus. In official talks and negotiations, the traditional concept of state-centred national security prevails over issues of individual human rights and human development. Human security is instead interpreted in relation to other important concepts of ethnic interests, Islamic values, national independence, and cultural and educational background. Further, national governments in a few illiberal states might consider the proposed human security paradigm as dangerous and undesirable for their regimes.

27 Selected papers presented at the International Conference on Human Security and Peace in Central Asia, 8–9 September 2005, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 2007, Paris, UNESCO.

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Human security priorities identified in Central Asia The first priority is related to economic security and poverty reduction. The Central Asian economies remain highly dependent on natural resources that could affect future economic growth and poverty reduction. There is a significant gap in gross national income (GNI)28 between two groups of states in Central Asia: the highest GNI per capita is in Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, blessed by rich natural resources, although their human development indicators may not be higher than in other Central Asian countries. The cases of the oil/gas rich countries in Central Asia demonstrate that poverty increases or persists because of inequality in the distribution of income. The second set of policy priorities is political participation, human rights and personal security. In general, a majority of people in the region has restricted access to political participation. The threat of various forms of violence is particularly serious in the poorest countries: Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan. Gender inequality and a tradition of discrimination at family, community and national levels are common in the Central Asian republics, in spite of their commitment to international conventions on women’s rights. In the oil- and gas-rich republics of Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, women do not benefit from the considerable revenues generated from the industry. Official statistics also fail to take into account the impact of widespread unregistered religious marriages and divorces, polygamous families, under-age unions and many other gender-sensitive indicators that affect women’s lives and status in society. On the whole, the complexity and impact of customary law on human security in Central Asia remain under-researched and frequently ignored in policy-making. Not all traditional practices contradict the concept of human security. Many ethnic and religious traditions warrant preservation, such as mutual help at community level, ethnic and religious tolerance, hospitality, sensible respect for elders, importance of family, support of disadvantaged groups of population, and a high regard for the local environment and holy places. The third priority might be identified as a fight against the narco-industry and trade in the seven ‘stans’ and Iran. After the end of the Cold War and disintegration of the Soviet Union we believed in the restoration of the Silk Road trade. However, instead of the famed Silk Route a notorious Drug Road

28 Gross national income (formerly gross national product or GNP), the broadest measure of national income, measures total value added from domestic and foreign sources claimed by residents. GNI comprises gross domestic product (GDP) plus net receipts of primary income from foreign sources.

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has emerged. Ordinary people in the region pay a heavy price for demand-driven drug production and transportation. The fourth set of priorities is the security dilemma. Nuclear threats make the region highly unstable and insecure for all neighbours. In the post-colonial era a chain of possible conflicts over resources, including borders, land and water, have been prevented in Central Asia. In each state, some tension or conflict potential remain with neighbours in the cross-border areas and between various factions within the country. The fifth priority is a response to environmental threats that include frequent earthquakes, landslides, the disaster of the Aral Sea and other natural and man-made problems.

Policies for action on human security The Central Asian states should jointly respond to the common challenges of human insecurity and conflict, by overcoming the legacies of colonialism and the Cold War, which have affected their relations in the past, and by addressing new global and regional threats. Human security greatly depends on each country’s structural and functional capacity to prevent domestic conflict and protect all population groups from fear and want, implying that each country could have a different priority in terms of its human security policy. Yet, based on a critical evaluation of the regional situation, a set of policies for action for the promotion of human security in Central Asia is offered below. International and regional cooperation The Central Asian case illustrates the overriding importance of the regional dimensions of human security. Fragmented Central Asian countries face increasing interdependence and have to respond jointly to similar problems, although their extent and precise nature may differ across countries. However, intergovernmental cooperation in the region is fragile and slow. Central Asian cooperation can be helpful in setting regional benchmarks of progress and in sharing experience of the implementation of human security reforms. Regional frameworks for economic, political and environmental cooperation, joint water management, migration strategy and cooperative efforts against terrorism, organized crime, corruption, drug and human trafficking will benefit neighbouring states. To promote human security, prevent conflict and combat threats, the international donors and agencies need to improve coordination of their programmes among themselves and national actors, and to support more regional rather than country projects in the Central Asian states.

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Regional dialogue and cooperation bring mutual benefits in addressing common challenges.

Prioritizing the human security agenda Governments and non-state actors need to place human security issues more highly on the agenda of their countries and the region. Regional and national forums could be organized to discuss the efficacy of the human security approach for the Central Asian region. Human security could be used as a multidisciplinary framework at regional and national meetings, linking common problems such as education and health issues, conflict prevention, religious and ethnic tolerance, anti-corruption, combating drug and human trafficking, migration and others in a more coherent and coordinated fashion. The value of human security is based on its positive connection with human rights and individual freedoms such as those of women, youth, ethnic and religious minorities, migrants and representatives of groups at risk. A holistic approach to the human security dilemmas in Central Asia is an important step towards a more people-centred strategy. Economic reforms and poverty reduction The establishment of macroeconomic sustainability is an important prerequisite for human security in Central Asia. Fostering an economically strong middle class and developing small and medium-size enterprises will be effective tools to assist with long-term regional stability. There is a vital need to diversify the economy to expand employment opportunities, especially in densely populated areas. Poverty reduction programmes are essential for the whole region. Educational approach to promoting human security Education is a crucial necessity for providing human security in the region. National and regional actors could set educational priorities in the promotion of human security. Particular attention should be paid to the education of women and of young men, to stimulate a positive effect that could help prevent their recruitment by extremist movements. A joint programme of researchers and representatives from governments and civil society groups should be established to identify national and regional priorities, to advocate a holistic approach to human security problems and to make policy recommendations. These working groups on regional and national programmes could develop monitoring and evaluation tools and methodologies on human security in the Central Asian context. Efforts should be made to collect standardized and systematized data on human security. Within regional institutions, country representatives might be encouraged to urge their national governments to participate in common censuses and surveys.

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Participation and vibrant civil society Central Asian people should have priority in deciding their own destiny. National and international actors should increase support for democratic institutions and civil society groups addressing problems of human security and human rights. There is an urgent need to enhance the capacity and expertise of civil society groups in relation to human security. For example, independent research and civil society groups could produce and translate literature on human security issues. Bridging ethnic and religious divides Central Asians should build upon past instances of overcoming ethnic and religious divides, and leverage from their rich history the many examples of ethnic and religious tolerance, traditional methods of conflict prevention and the means to achieving more human security for all population groups. An extended dialogue on tackling cultural diversity in the region would have a positive impact on bridging ethnic and religious divides. Combating drug industry and human trafficking Central Asian countries need to further discuss the regional anti-drug platform and involvement of civil society groups in combating these plagues. To eliminate drug trafficking and drug use the Central Asian governments and donor community must address the economic sources of the mass involvement in the illicit trade in drugs and people. Human security for women National and regional efforts to empower women and promote women’s rights should be supported. The reality in Central Asia illustrates that there is a long way to go to achieve gender equality, from signing international conventions to the real elimination of discrimination against women. The role of customary law in society ought to be discussed in a human security context. Women should have more access to decision-making positions and economic resources. Helping Afghanistan Stabilization and reconstruction in Afghanistan are the most important steps for achieving human security in the Central Asian neighbourhood. International aid to post-conflict state-building, counter-narcotics programmes and addressing the many other human security problems in Afghanistan will benefit all Central Asian states.

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Promoting internet and computer technology for discussion on human security issues The internet remains an expensive luxury for most Central Asian peoples. International organizations and private sponsors could greatly contribute by widening access to information and discussions on human security in their countries, the region and the world. New technology through a satellite link could bring together all the members of the Central Asian neighbourhood. Exploring new digital satellite possibilities is a new step in South-South networks and sharing of knowledge and skills for human security. Enhancing cooperation among local stakeholders and international organizations Teamwork of national governments and civil society groups with UNESCO, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and other agencies in promoting human security in Central Asia would have a lasting impact.

UNESCO and its National Commissions Encouraging regional and interregional cooperation In Central Asia, UNESCO together with UN agencies and other organizations engaged in the region could promote regional and interregional dialogue and provide a platform for cooperation to integrate human security priorities in domestic and external policies in each country. For example, UNESCO could facilitate a dialogue on human security between the Central Asian Cooperation Organization29 and ASEAN. There is a need for further UNESCO assistance in encouraging and facilitating national and regional discussions on a holistic approach to human security among state and non-state actors. Joint analytical work on the elaboration of a human security strategy in Central Asia under the auspices of UNESCO should be continued in the future with support from the donor community. UNESCO and well-placed National Commissions in the region may support cooperation among local civil society groups, academicians and state organizations in establishing national and regional websites promoting human security in the vernacular.

29 The Central Asian Cooperation Organization was initially created under the name of Central Asian Economic Union in 1994, by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Tajikistan joined the group in 1998, and the Organization was then renamed Central Asian Economic Cooperation (CAEC). In February 2002, the CAEC was transformed into the Central Asian Cooperation Organization (CACO). In May 2004, the Russian Federation joined CACO.

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Exchange of ideas in education, culture and science carried out under the auspices of UNESCO and its National Commissions will greatly contribute to understanding human security strategies in the region. Particular attention could be paid to e-education and networking relating to the promotion of human security in the universities and research institutions of Central Asia.

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NORTH-EAST ASIA

Human security in North-East Asia by Guan Xin Ping Dean, Department of Social Work and Social Policy, Nankai University, China

Background In the decade since the first proposal of ‘human security’, this concept has, to a great extent, been accepted by different kinds of people in many countries: Western and Eastern; developed and developing; by scholars and officials, governments and NGOs, although it has so far had varying impacts on different countries and groups. For individual governments, the most significant task in improving human security is to develop relevant policies based on the international concept of human security, and which suit the countries’ special conditions. Because of differences in economic development and historic and cultural features, the policy focuses on human security differ from one country to other. We have thus three important tasks in implementing human security principles worldwide:

The first is to reach as close an agreement as possible between various countries and groups of people about the basic meaning, supreme targets and significant focuses of human security. The second is to encourage individual countries to develop a series of

operational indicators of human security, which is suitable to their country’s political, economic and socio-cultural conditions, together with sustainable policy actions to improve human security in each country. The third is to develop internationally cooperative actions, especially

regionally cooperative actions, to enhance human security in each country.

The concept of human security in North-East Asia Human security is important to North-East Asian countries, and thus has been emphasized by scholars and politicians in the region since the concept was first proposed. However, due to their different historical, political and cultural characteristics and socio-economic backgrounds, they have their own understanding and interpretation of this concept. North-East Asia’s special features in the interpretation of the human security concept should not just be explained simply by the general Western/Eastern gap, or developed/developing, but also by the specific historical and cultural background of the countries in this

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region. For example, there are strong Confucian features not only in China, but also, to some extent, in Japan and in the Republic of Korea, which are helpful to maintain a secure society. Also, there is a strong sense of nationhood and collectivity, which may be more helpful in maintaining internal than external security.

It is now widely accepted by various countries and regions that the concept of human security has two aspects: ‘freedom from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’, and a third dimension should be added here, although to a lesser degree, that of ‘freedom from discrimination’. However, there are still many different understandings and emphasis placed on this concept. Traditionally, North-East Asian countries had their own understanding of the security concept: first, for the goal of freedom from fear, they tended to place more emphasis on national security, thinking that national sovereignty is the most important condition of security, i.e. freedom from fear is freedom from threats to the nation. Second, concerning freedom from want, North-East Asian countries tended to have a more affluent society due to rapid economic development on the one hand, and to have a safety net to satisfy the basic needs of the poor, which includes a regional anti-poverty strategy and minimal living security provisions on the other.

In the past decade, North-East Asian countries have gradually recognized the limitation of these traditional security concepts. In some countries, such as Japan, there have been official expressions of the new concept (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1999) while in others, academic interest is gradually growing. Overall, however, the academic research and policy actions on the human security approach are still insufficient, and there are still significant imbalances between countries in this region. Given the large political and economic differences between North-East countries, there is still far from being a single ‘North-East Asian pattern’ to human security. For this reason, we discuss human security issues in the different countries in this region from a comparative perspective.

The traditional Chinese concept of security In China, there has been a notable change in the human security situation in the last two decades. Historically, China was a vast centralized country with a large population. It was a major undertaking for a ‘good’ emperor and local officials to secure people’s standard of living. In modern history, since the Opium War in 1840, the centralized national power was threatened by Western ‘invaders’ and civil wars. After the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the new government had two supreme tasks: one was a strong nation to secure national sovereignty, and thus secure the people’s peaceful existence; the other was a productive economic system and socialist distribution system, to secure people’s basic living standards. In the former centrally planned economy

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(1950s–1970s), both government and people believed that a strong nation meant security for people, both politically and economically, and thus the nation’s security was the supreme goal. During the Cold War, moreover, both government and people had a higher sense of political and economic insecurity. For the government, because of the politico-ideological collision with Western countries and economic underdevelopment, there was a strong sense of political and military threat from the outside, and a strong sense of economic insecurity, especially in food provision. In the three decades before the reform, the supreme task was to have enough food for the vast population, and for possible war.

The government’s politic and economic insecurity was shared by Chinese people in those decades, and moreover, as a result of the overweighed political ideology of the ‘class struggle’, some people’s personal security was also threatened by political discrimination. Those who were seen as belonging to the ‘political enemy’ were liable to be deprived of their political rights and economic opportunities.

Current human security situation in China Thanks to the economic reform and open-door policy, the human security situation has changed dramatically since the late 1970s. Both political and economic security for nation and people are much better as a result of the rapid economic growth in the past three decades, the diplomatic efforts to create an international political coordination mechanism to avoid international conflicts, and the changes in political ideology and system. In its domestic affairs, China has been trying to eliminate poverty through economic development, and to free the people from want by reforming social insurance and establishing a minimum standard of living. In international relations, China is trying to pursue a peaceful diplomatic strategy: to make more friends, reduce international tensions and avoid ideological debates. All these changes are contributing to greater political and economic security for both government and people.

However, the rapid economic growth of the past two decades has led to a number of social problems, including growing poverty, widening socio-economic gaps between urban and rural and between different regions, growing environmental and ecological damage, and rising unemployment, number of and migrating labourers, etc. In facing all these social problems, the traditional theories and policy actions no longer work well, thus the new theoretical framework for human security, and policy based on it, are becoming necessary.

In China, the concept of human security has so far seldom been used in government documents, and not often by social scientists. The official concept of national security persists, ‘free from military and politic threat from the outside’, and that of Social Security, ‘governmental or societal action to provide basic social insurance and social assistance to the people’. Although more academics, and even some officials, are tending to use the term ‘security’ such

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as in ‘economic security’, ‘demographic security’ or ‘politic security’, not many refer to ‘human security’ in China. The concept was first used by some scholars in international political studies, a discipline that is undergoing a transition from the traditional to a new perspective.

Human security in China: research project with a North-East Asian perspective To summarize the political, economic and social changes and development by using the concept of human security, to explore the changes in human security in contemporary China, and to compare the Chinese situation and experiences with other North-East Asian countries, a research project supported by UNESCO’s Beijing Office has been conducted from early 2006.

Objectives of the research

General goals This research project aims to enhance both national and international actions to improve human security in North-East Asian countries. By international academic comparative research among scholars in China, Japan and Korea, we hope to have more knowledge of human security on which to base government policy, NGO participation and international cooperation among the three countries.

The general goals can be summarized as follows. 1. Through a systematic literature review and theoretic analysis, this project will summarize the characteristics of human security in North-East Asia, and thus contribute to the development of human security theory. 2. By comprehensive empirical research into the basic conditions of human security in the three countries, this project will help to encourage governments, scholars and others to increase knowledge in human security in these countries, and thus reinforce efforts to solve related social problems. 3. By international collaborative research, this project will promote international cooperation in human security actions in this region; especially by emphasis on regional economic cooperation. 4. For China, this project will be very helpful in brining theoretical support and international experience to official efforts to ‘build a socialist harmonious society’.

Project targets 1. To gain comprehensive knowledge of human security conditions in the three countries by systematically collecting empirical data, including the human security indicators used in the quantitative measurement of human security, together with the Human Security Index used to evaluate conditions in various regions.

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2. To make a comparative analysis of similarities and differences between the three countries, the variety of the problems these countries face and ways to resolve them. 3. To propose policies to the governments of these three countries and international organizations, including solutions to domestic problems and for developing international cooperative action to promote human security in the region. 4. To disseminate the findings and data from this project, including theoretic knowledge, successful policy actions on human security, research methodology, and human security indicators and index, to other Asian countries and even outside Asia. 5. International collaborative research: three separate research groups working in their own countries will exchange information and gather together in two international workshops, the first to discuss the research plan and the second to exchange research findings in each country.

Project rationale

Conceptual analysis According to the 1994 Human Development Report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, 1994), the concept of human security includes seven components: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security and political security. These components are closely interrelated and any crisis in one area will be harmful for all other areas of human security. Further factors, especially those prevalent in China, are explored in this project.

Two tiers to the concept – structural security and personal security First, human security is divided into two conceptual tiers: structural security and personal security.

Structural security

Economic security Political security National security

Environmental security Natural security (To reduce the harms of natural disasters, etc.)

……

Personal security

Employment and income security Food and consumption security

Health security Educational rights

Personal safety Security for politic rights

Socio-cultural security ……

The project will collect and analyse data from both tiers, but fieldwork on first-hand data will mainly concern the personal tier, and research for the structural

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tier will use documents in the public domain, such as official statistics and academic publications.

Objective and subjective meanings of the concept Objective: actual conditions of human security Subjective: personal perceptions of security

People’s subjective perceptions of human security are influenced, if not wholly controlled, by their objective conditions in the relevant areas. Other social and personal factors also affect subjective perceptions. On the other hand, further research and open discussion of this concept will improve people’s subjective security perceptions, which may result in more policies to improve the objective conditions of human security.

The many aspects of human security Political security: political and social stability, human rights protection

(including citizens’ rights, legal rights, occupational rights, social rights and cultural rights).

Two-tier and multiple structures of human security model

Personal security Economic Political security security Food Health

security security Consumption Personal

security safety

Socio-cultural Community security security

Other aspects of personal security

Environmental, ecological security, demographic security

Economic security Political security National security Structural security

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Economic security: employment opportunity/stability, income maintenance, property rights, housing. Health security: security against disease (from mild to serious, e.g.

AIDS/HIV, SARS, bird flu), access to preventive and curative health services. Food security: general situation, price, supply of food and other necessities,

food hygiene (fresh food and catering). Consumption security: personal safety and health. Security for personal safety: against crime, occupational hazards,

contingency, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, etc. Community security: interpersonal relations, freedom from social exclusion

and discrimination, trust. Socio-cultural security: education, cultural characteristics for ethical

minorities. Any other aspects of human security.

Special groups that give concern The project is to study human security with all kinds of people, but some groups will be paid special attention, including elderly or disabled people, children, domestic migrants (rural labourers working in cities), unskilled labourers, unemployed and poor families, and some ethnic minority groups, among others.

Causes of insecurity Some possible factors causing human insecurity in China will be explored, including: economic underdevelopment and economic instability; unequal distribution system; shortage of public services (social security, health services, education, etc.); inadequate public action to protect the environment, safe food, etc.; crime, violence and corruption; discrimination and social exclusion; migration, both international and domestic; potential international or regional conflicts.

Conceptual and practical relationship between human security and other social actions Human security and human development: the conceptual relationship

between human security and human development and the extent to which one influences the other, and under what conditions. Human security and social harmony: in what way is human security a basic

condition of social harmony?

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Human security and social policy: how the application of the human security concept will affect social policy principles, and whether they will result in changes in social security conditions.

Gender perspective A gender perspective will be applied to identify differences and inequalities between male and female human security situations and the causative factors. Policy analysis and suggestions will also include a gender perspective. Some researchers in gender studies will be invited to work on the project, for example from the All China Women’s Federation.

Comparative framework The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights will be applied as a comparative framework/parameter.

Methodology

Qualitative methods Individual interviews, with general residents and members of special groups; Focus groups, with special groups and in topic communities; Expert/official interviews, with relevant social sciences; specific government departments; local community organizations.

Quantitative methods (questionnaire) A survey will be carried out in Chinese cities and villages, with sample capacity of 2,000 and through staged random sampling. to collect data about personal situation in various aspects of human

security; to collect subjective data about people’s views of human security; to collect data on people’ remarks on their own country’s human security

and their responses to problems; to collect suggestions for improving human security in different countries; to measure the human security situation using human security indicators,

and evaluate the general conditions of human security in each country using the Human Security Index; other methods.

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Bibliography BAJPAI, Kanti. 2000. Human Security: Concept and Measurement. Goa, India, Centre for Advanced Research/An Information Exchange on Peace, Diplomacy, and Development (CPDSINDIA). http://kroc.nd.edu/ocpapers/op_19_1.PDF

CHEN, Lincoln C. 1999. Health and human security: translating theory into action. Paper presented at International Symposium on Development, Tokyo, Japan, 24 June.

CHS. 2003. Human Security Now: Protecting and Empowering People. New York, United Nations Commission on Human Security, p. 4.

DALBY, Simon. 2000. Geopolitical Change and Contemporary Security Studies: Contextualizing the Human Security Agenda. University of British Columbia, Institute of International Relations. (Working Paper No. 30.) http://www.iir.ubc.ca/pdffiles/ webwp30.pdf

HUMAN SECURITY NETWORK. 2000. Chairman’s Summary of Second Ministerial Meeting, Lucerne, Switzerland, 11–12 May. http://www.humansecuritynetwork.org/docs/Chairman_summary-e.php

KING, Gary; MURRAY, Christopher J. L. 2001. Rethinking Human Security. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University, Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, Program on Human Security, p. 6. http://gking.harvard.edu/files/hs.pdf

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 1999. Efforts toward the realization of a better global society. In: Diplomatic Bluebook 1999: Japan’s Diplomacy with Leadership Toward the New Century. Tokyo, Government of Japan, pp. 101–03.

OGATA, Sadako. 2002. Overview for the Commission on Human Security. http://www.humansecurity-chs.org/activities/meetings/first/overview.html

Report of the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, 6–12 March 1995. Earth Negotiations Bulletin, Vol. 10, No. 44 (Summary Issue). http://www.iisd.ca/vol10/1044000e.html

SERITA, Kentaro; INOGUCHI, Takashi (eds). 1996. Selected Papers delivered at the United Nations University, Global Seminar ’96 Shonan Session, 1–4 October 1996, Kobe, Japan. http://www.unu.edu/unupress/planet.html

UNDP. 1994. Human Development Report 1994: New dimensions of human security. New York, United Nations Development Programme.

––––. 1995. Human Development Report 1995: Gender and Human Development. New York, United Nations Development Programme.

––––. 2001. Human Development Report 2001: Making New Technologies Work for Human Development. New York, United Nations Development Programme, p. 15.

––––. 2005. Human Development Report 2005: International Cooperation at a Crossroads: Aid, Trade and Security in an Unequal World. New York, United Nations Development Programme.

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The following documents are originally in Chinese

HU, Angang. 2000. Hu Angang thinks that human insecurity is a key challenge to development. Policy-Making Information, No. 1.

JIN, Dian (ed.). 2002. National Security. Beijing, China Friendship Publishing House.

LI, Dongyan. 2004. UN’s security theory and non-traditional security. World Economy and Politics, No. 8.

LIU, Jianping. 2005. Security, human security and national security. World Economy and Politics, No. 2.

XUE, Dezhen. 2004. To be human-centered is the core issue of scientific development. People’s Daily, 09/03.

ZHAI, Zhengwu; MING, Yan, 2005. The definition of ‘demographic security’. Demography Studies, No. 3.

ZHANG, Chun. 2004. Human security: definitions and international political meanings. Modern International Relations, No. 4.

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LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Human security: a unifying and linking concept in Latin America and the Caribbean30 by Francisco Rojas Aravena Secretary-General, FLACSO, Costa Rica

Freedom from fear is the security objective laid down by the United Nations in its Millennium Report. Achieving this will involve recognition that the international system has changed fundamentally in recent years and that in the process a clear need has arisen to develop innovative approaches and perspectives so that we can grasp these changes and respond to new challenges.

During the Cold War, concepts of security mainly related to the state, and the viewpoint was primarily a military one. At the present time, a transition can be observed towards a broader concept of security whose objectives are peace, international stability and protection for individuals and communities. Since the mid-1990s we have seen the concept of human security, which emphasizes the protection of individuals, coming strongly to the fore. One of the changes that have most influenced the development of the human security concept is the new nature of conflicts around the world, most of which take place within states.

The complexity of global problems and their repercussions for millions of people is another factor that has contributed to this change in outlook where security is concerned. The threats now are very different from those of a military attack against one’s homeland, they include environmental risks, international crime, drug trafficking and terrorism. All this entails far-reaching changes in the basic idea of sovereignty and shows that national capabilities are inadequate to deal with the main problems.

The main changes and tendencies in the international system that are influencing the way we observe and analyse the new security challenges, and that have given rise to a new conceptualization, are associated principally with the following structural and international factors:

30 The author has developed some of these ideas in H. G. Brauch et al. (eds), 2007, Facing Global Environmental Change: Environmental, Human, Energy, Food, Health and Water Security Concepts, Berlin, Springer Verlag.

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the end of bipolar conflict; new power relationships; the impact of globalization in different areas, and interdependence; a change in the dimensions of time and space; the loss of state capabilities; increase in intra-national conflicts; new international actors; new threats to security; development gaps.

Some tendencies that worked in the post-Cold War years were left behind during the terrorists attacks that started 11 September 2001 in the United States which later spread into other capitals of Europe and Asia. The US answer to this tragedy questioned not only the resolutions of international law but multilateral agreements. This ‘radical unilateral approach’ is generating a serious polarization within the country, while elsewhere it is giving rise to an increasing anti-American sentiment.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the end of the Cold War coincided with democratization and pacification in certain countries of South and Central America. This investigation follows the main objectives mentioned. When considering the new security situation in the Americas, a number of tendencies need to be taken into account:

Latin America and the Caribbean has held, and still does, a marginal position in global strategic affairs. Latin America has not consolidated a disarmament policy in relation to

weapons of mass destruction. The military spending of Latin America and the Caribbean is low in

comparison with the rest of the world. International security institutions are weak in Latin America and the

Caribbean. Latin America has reached consensus on a common conceptual framework

for security. Internal conflicts. The United States was the main actor in the region and hemisphere during

the Cold War, and still is.

Conceptual approach to human security Fear takes away freedom, and without freedom dignity and justice are lost. Without freedom, dignity and justice, people lose their basic rights. Human security presupposed the right to have rights; and the best way in which people can ensure themselves of those rights is to reinforce democracy and governance.

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Democracy is the political system that increases the rights of the people and facilitates peaceful resolutions of conflict. It can be an important measure of human security: (a) government authorities are more likely to be held accountable for human rights abuses; (b) there is a correlation between lack of democracy and inhibited economic development; (c) the ability to set the agenda through lobbying diffuses power from central authority into the hands of citizens who choose to engage in the democratic process.

Human security complements state security; it does not oppose it. ‘Protecting and empowering people are thus about creating genuine possibilities for people to live in safety and dignity. Seen from this angle human security reinforces state security but does not replace it’.31

The Human Security Now report also defines human security as a way ‘to protect the vital core of all human life in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfilment’. Human security is a universal concern and interdependent. The UN Secretary-General defines human security as ‘freedom from fear and freedom from want’.

During the Third Summit of the Americas held in Quebec (2001), the presidents of the Hemisphere addressed issues and challenges that included improved access to education, poverty, alleviation, strengthening human rights and democracy and economic integration. The resulting Declaration of Quebec City determined the region’s priorities and goals for upcoming years, which recognized the need to ‘continue addressing weakness in the development processes and increasing human security’.

The Special Conference on Security held in Mexico in October 2003 achieved a great and important consensus on security matters. In the Declaration on Security in the Americas, adopted by the Organization of American States (OAS), expresses principles and reaffirms shared values and a common approach, as well as the coincidence on commitments and cooperation measures. The Declaration defines the basic purpose of security to be the protection of human beings:

(e) In our Hemisphere, as democratic states committed to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the OAS, we reaffirm that the basis and purpose of security is the protection of human beings. Security is strengthened when we deepen its human dimension. Conditions for human security are improved through full respect for people’s dignity, human rights, and fundamental freedoms, as well as the promotion of social and economic development, social inclusion, and education and the fight against poverty, disease, and hunger. (i) The security threats, concerns, and other challenges in the hemispheric context are of diverse nature and multidimensional scope, and the traditional concept and

31 Human Security Now: Protecting and Empowering People, 2003, New York, United Nations Commission on Human Security, p. 5.

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approach must be expanded to encompass new and non-traditional threats, which include political, economic, social, health, and environmental aspects. (j) Traditional threats to security and the mechanisms for addressing them remain important and may be different in nature from the new threats, concerns, and other challenges to security and from cooperation mechanisms for addressing them.32

Double human security triad A global perspective of human security entails a more inclusive, integrative and multidimensional concept, in which cooperation and multilateralism can be pinpointed as important goals within an interregional vision. This means focusing on the people through a more holistic perspective that includes development and security in the national agendas. Human security is linked on the one hand with people-centred concepts such as human rights and human development, and on the other with international security and state security.

Human rights, human development and human security Human security as an idea fruitfully supplements the expansionist perspective of human development by directly focusing on what are sometimes called ‘downside risks’. The insecurities that threaten human survival or the safety of daily life, or imperil the natural dignity of men and women, expose them to uncertainty of disease and pestilence, subject the vulnerable to abrupt penury related to economic downturns, demand that special attention be paid to the dangers of sudden deprivation. Human security demands protection from these dangers and the empowerment of people so that they can cope with them – and when possible overcome them.

There is a similar complementarity between the concepts of human rights and human security. Few concepts are frequently invoked in contemporary political debates as human rights. There is something deeply attractive in the idea that every person anywhere in the world, irrespective of citizenship or location, has some basic rights that others should respect. The moral appeal of human rights has been used for varying purposes, from resisting torture and arbitrary incarceration to demanding the end of hunger and unequal treatment of women.

Poverty and inequity are some of the main problems to be faced in Latin America. The challenge ahead is what kind of public actions can resolve the fact that some 40% of Latin Americans are poor, and that half of them live on a salary of less than US$1 a day.

International security, state security and human security One of the main intellectual and institutional challenges is to establish a conceptual link from human security to international security that takes in state 32 http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rls/61292.htm

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security. Once satisfactorily established, this relationship will simultaneously satisfy world security needs and those of nations, individuals and people. It will also improve the implementation of human security measures.

The primordial characteristic of the new international conflicts, centred on intra-state problems, reveals the need to reach a better understanding of the interrelationship between these three levels, particularly in view of the impact of globalization. The new threats are transnational in nature and involve actors and agents that in most cases do not represent a nation or are not located in a clearly delimited state territory.

Again, in a context of globalization and interdependence the risks and vulnerabilities that affect a nation’s security also affect other states, and thus cannot be resolved exclusively within national borders. Wars have also changed radically and the great majority are no longer between states. Conflicts take place within states and have inter-state consequences. Their origins and motivations have more to do with ethnicity, religion or self-determination than with disagreements over borders or state interests. Non-state actors are playing a more prominent part. Furthermore, demands are increasingly being directed towards international, inter-state and non-governmental organizations, which mean that the capabilities of states, especially the less powerful ones, are being reduced.

Human security centres on the protection of individuals and communities. This concept is unifying and multidimensional (Table 1). It takes in more local dimensions, even if these relate to issues affecting great masses of people. It also takes in issues of a planetary scale that affect humanity as a whole (AIDS, SARS, the environment, etc.). In both cases, these issues have not traditionally been approached at the other two levels (national security and international security). In other words, the focus is shifting from the state to the individual; the fundamental issue is the protection of individuals over and above their connection with a particular state.

The conditions required for human security can only be met in conjunction with those required for state and international security. Indeed, an international crisis is at once a state crisis and a human security crisis. Likewise, a crisis in the state becomes a humanitarian crisis and an international crisis, and a human security crisis is simultaneously a state and international crisis, whence the need for a holistic approach.

To avoid the danger of overreach referred to earlier, however, it is necessary to settle on a focal point for the concept of human security in the different dimensions and levels where it is expressed (Table 2). Similarly, a holistic or integrated perspective means that appropriate linkages can be made in the conceptual triad.

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Table 1. Conceptualization of national security, international security and human security National security International

security (traditional)

Human security

Approach National Inter-state Multidimensional Focus National/state Inter-state

Regional Global

Individual Global (because of impact on individuals)

Conflicts Intra-national Inter-state

Inter-state Transnational

Intra-national Inter-state Transnational Global

Implementation National defence system Interministerial coordination

Bilateral coordination United Nations Coordination through regional organizations (OAS)

United Nations Interministerial coordination Intergovernmental coordination Coordination through regional/international organizations Global networks

Function of the armed forces

Protecting national borders

Inter-state cooperation Cooperation through international organizations Peacekeeping operations (mainly Chapter VI of the Charter of the United Nations)

Protecting national borders; peacekeeping operations (Chapters VI and VII) Inter-state cooperation Cooperation through international organizations

Actors State State Intergovernmental organizations Non-governmental organizations

Individual Intergovernmental organizations Non-state actors Civil society Non-governmental organizations State

In our judgement, the specific structural element that allows this phenomenon to be best understood and targeted is violence. Accordingly, we need to consider the conditions under which violence appears and the perpetrators of violence. Joint action to forestall the use of force reaffirms international law and generates increased opportunities for concerted action.

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Table 2. The different dimensions and levels of human security Variables Ecology

(life) Economy (wealth)

Society (support)

Politics (power)

Culture (knowledge)

Environmental capital

Economic capital

Social capital Political capital Cultural capital

Effects Sustainability

Disaster

Prosperity

Poverty

Equality

Inequality

Peace

Violence

Wisdom

Ignorance

Globalization

A world of associated

effects ‘greenhouse

effect’

Dark side of globalization

and competition,

more inequality

Refugees

Migrations

Hyper-urbanization

Governance

Global regimes

Cooperation/conflict

Identities

Values

Use of force Bio-terrorism Financial crisis

e-terrorism

Money laundering

Polarization

Ungovernability

Citizen security

Anti-mines

Children at war

Small arms

Traditional disarmament

Intolerance and religious

wars.

Local identities clashing

with national and

global security

ones.

The phenomenon can be more readily analysed if three main aspects are considered: (a) the conditions under which violence is likely to occur; (b) the perpetrators of violence; (c) the preventive measures that can be taken so that violence and humanitarian crises do not break out.

Identifying violence in this way makes it possible to achieve a broad understanding of the determining phenomena and to obtain specific responses as to when and in what cases legitimate violence is the best means and when other instruments should be used. The militarization of responses results in a rising spiral of violence that is hard to stop. Conversely, the adoption of preventive measures limits the scope for the emergence of conditions that favour violence.

Latin America: main vulnerabilities In the case of Latin America, the main threats to human security are associated with a set of circumstances that includes weak democracy, rising poverty and inequity and, increasingly, urban violence and crime. Although efforts have been made by multilateral institutions, governments and civil society to deal with these vulnerabilities, there is still a long way to go. There are six basic

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areas in which threats could arise for human security in the context of the Latin American countries: socio-economic, social integration, politico-institutional, international (traditional), internal and environmental.

Socio-economic vulnerabilities Social and economic vulnerabilities reflect the growing inability of the production, trading and financial systems to solve people’s most immediate problems, essentially poverty, the distribution of income and, increasingly, unemployment. From the human security point of view, it is essential to find the best tools for dealing with these insecurities. Accordingly, emphasis has been laid on the need to reiterate the principle of ‘growth with equity’ and establish that of ‘crisis with security’. In other words, to generate and encourage the creation of mechanisms to protect people in adverse situations that includes inflation, unemployment and fiscal crises.

A review of some indicators for Latin American reveals low rates of growth and great vulnerability to upheavals in the international economy, rising external debt and high unemployment rates. This last factor leads to an uncertain economic outlook for the countries of the region. From the social point of view, furthermore, we find that poverty levels are rising, social exclusion is not improving, the gap between rich and poor is widening, and social spending is low in some countries.

Social integration and vulnerability The persistence of high levels of poverty in the region, combined with the weakness of democratic institutions, is seriously affecting the social integration of traditionally excluded sectors that are subject to severe discrimination.

The sectors that are particularly vulnerable in Latin America are ethnic groups and immigrants. Empowerment of these sectors is essential, because they are the ones that suffer most from economic, social and indeed cultural insecurities.

Politico-institutional vulnerabilities: weak political institutions-weak democracies In Latin America and the Caribbean, democracy has proved to be the best political system for attaining the goals of freedom from fear and want. The region has a disastrous history of violations of human rights and political rights during the periods of dictatorship, when the doctrine of national security was paramount. This is why it is important to consolidate democracy, as a system that has an inbuilt preference for dialogue and policy agreement, to solve disputes and promote human rights among the different actors and agents of society.

Latin American democracies tend to be weak. With a few exceptions, the region displays serious politico-institutional shortcomings that manifest themselves in

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recurring crises, unwarranted interference by the armed forces in domestic political matters in certain countries, lack of respect for political and civil rights and basic guarantees, high indices of corruption and institutionalized violence. It is not surprising that, as a result of this, a feeling of profound mistrust towards political parties has increased, leaving a crisis of representation that is affecting both the political system and democracy.

Like the example of a glass half filled with water, democracy shows two different scenarios in Latin America. For some people, the glass will be half empty, for others it will be half full. Looking at the empty half side, nine presidents left power before their democratic period ended in some countries of South America. But in a more positive light, it can be said that from November 2005 to December 2006, twelve democratic elections were held in Latin America.

International security vulnerabilities (traditional) In the Latin American region the traditional conflict and associated insecurity is linked to unresolved border conflicts. There are at least a dozen interstate open border conflicts. The last small war was in 1995 between Ecuador and Peru. Also in countries such as Colombia the guerrilla warfare is spreading beyond national borders.

In addition, important transnational security threats, such as drug trafficking and organized crime – including money laundering and kidnapping – affects people’s security. The nature of these threats is multidimensional and requires a cooperative approach to fight them.

Internal security vulnerabilities Social violence and crime have become major problems in Latin American countries. Poverty, inequity and lack of social cohesion open the way to organized crime in the major cities. Unemployment and easy access to light weapons, together with weak police organization, increase crime rates and homicides. In addition, in many countries institutionalized violence is a constant threat; and normally the death squads are related to repressive forces.

Environmental vulnerabilities Much has been made in recent years of the existence of a world environmental crisis. It has also been emphasized that this is a problem of planetary scale whose origins are essentially human and not natural.

For example, global warming and deforestation resulting from over-exploitation of woodland is reducing plant cover, diminishing genetic variety and triggering alluvial erosion and desertification.

Water shortages are also a serious problem for future development in Latin America, as well as in rest of the world. During the twentieth century, water

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consumption grew more than twice as fast as population. Four in every ten of the world’s inhabitants live in areas where water is scarce. It is possible that by 2025, no less than two-thirds of the world’s population, or some 5.5 billion people, will be living in countries where there is a serious shortage of water.

This context of deforestation and loss of plant species, water shortages and drought is generally intertwined with socio-political disasters such as armed conflict and forced migration that exacerbate the degradation, erosion and desertification of soils. The resultant loss of farming land is largely responsible for one of the main threats to people’s security in the region and worldwide: food security.

New threats in Latin America Each one of these vulnerabilities can change into an effective threat with great impact on human security in the region. The more traditional threats have a low probability of occurrence, but measures of mutual trust must be developed to avoid errors of interpretation. In relation to new threats, the Special Security Conference (Mexico, October 2003)33 highlights seven: The security of states of the Hemisphere is affected, in different ways, by traditional threats and the following new threats, concerns, and other challenges of a diverse nature: terrorism, transnational organized crime, the global drug problem,

corruption, asset laundering, illicit trafficking in weapons, and the connections among them; extreme poverty and social exclusion of broad sectors of the population,

which also affect stability and democracy, eroding social cohesion and undermining the security of states; natural and man-made disasters, HIV/AIDS and other diseases, health risks,

and environmental degradation; trafficking in persons; attacks to cyber security; potential for damage to arise in the event of an accident or incident during

the maritime transport of potentially hazardous materials, including petroleum and radioactive materials and toxic waste; possibility of access, possession and use of weapons of mass destruction

and their means of delivery by terrorists. It is the responsibility of the specialized fora of the OAS, and inter-American and international fora, to develop cooperation mechanisms to address these new

33 http://scm.oas.org/doc_public/ENGLISH/HIST_03/CE00359E07.doc

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threats, concerns and other challenges, based on applicable instruments and mechanisms.

Human security policies for action in Latin America A series of compromises in security matters have been adopted in the Americas in a bid to develop and promote actions against the seven threats mentioned above. The decision to send a regional armed force contingent – from Brazil, Argentina and Chile – to first stabilize and then guaranteed free elections in Haiti, signals a new era of regional cooperation designed to defend and protect the civil population in that country. This action may be seen as a major compromise with the Operations for Peace Maintenance in the newly constituted UN Peace Commission. Human security and the international defence/international policy perspective is clearly part of at least six Latin American countries (other than Costa Rica and Chile, which are part of the Human Security Network). The human security concept has been incorporated in the definitions of defence policy in Ecuador. Also President Bachelet reaffirmed in her UN speech that this concept will be part of the international policy definitions in Chile. Some Caribbean countries claim it is the tool to resolve their own problems. Following the Ottawa Convention (the main achievement of the region), compromises in anti-personnel-landmine-free zone has been adopted. Cooperative approaches and efforts of all states, as well as those of the OAS Mine Action Team will support humanitarian de-mining, mine risk education, landmine victim assistance and rehabilitation, and socio-economic recovery. As for terrorism, it is recognized as a serious threat to security, institutions, and democratic values. The entire region has signed the Inter-American Convention against Terrorism in which all states renewed their commitment to fight terrorism and its financing with full respect for the rule of law and international law, including international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international refugee law. All the states in the Hemisphere have signed the Palermo Convention. Regardless of this, actions against organized crime are deficient. The region has also signed the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) and the Consultant Committee of the Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and other Related Materials (CIFTA).

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Citizen security has faced many crises in the region, such as that in Sao Paulo (the detention system issue). The ‘Maras’ gang phenomenon in Central America is undermining weak states, bringing serious threats to democratic governance as well as to national and regional stability. Both cases show that it is necessary to reinforce the state perspective to support human security; not to support the traditional perspective. The weakness in some democracies and governance difficulties bring strong flows of international migration and internal displacements. This social phenomenon gives way to illegality and other transnational threats. Lack of democracy reinforces poverty and inequity and this will bring more violence in the cities, incrementing risk zones and poor governance.

Main tasks for the future As the idea of human security has evolved towards greater inclusion and leadership for individuals, the importance of education and the demands made on it have been increasing. The role of UNESCO and academic institutions (such as FLACSO), and other important actors has become more important in achieving the UN General Assembly Resolution (A/60/1 paragraph 143) on human security. To advance in analysing and defending the notion and concept of human security, a definition of all it entails is required. And in constructing this concept education becomes one of the main tools, thus giving UNESCO, as well as ASEAN, a privileged role.

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AFRICA

Human security priorities for Africa by Jakkie Cilliers Executive Director, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa

Introduction It is evident that Africa is the least stable continent. So first of all I will make the obvious linkage between poor development and poor security, then very briefly argue that much of the origins of human insecurity in Africa can be found in the history of African state formation, concluding with what can be done. The United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index shows that in 2006, of the 177 countries listed, Norway is No. 1, whereas Niger (in Africa) is No. 177. African countries are very strongly clustered at the bottom. The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is at 58, followed by Algeria at 119 and South Africa at 120. And then, literally the rest of Africa follows.34 In 2005, the Human Security Centre, based at the University of British Columbia (Canada), published the first Human Security Report.35 This report, largely complementary to the well-known UNDP Human Development Reports, contained a number of interesting findings. Among these it argued that: ‘Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a dramatic and sustained decline in the number of armed conflicts. And an uneven but equally dramatic decline in battle-deaths has been under way for more than half a century.’ But, it said, this is generally not accepted. People think that there is more war in the world, whereas the opposite is the truth. The reason is that those wars that are reported involve largely the so-called Western powers. And since the West (US, UK) dominates the global media, the impression is given that that is why there is more war. The reality is that there is much less war. Any country in the world

34 The first UNDP Human Development Report (1990) introduced a new way of measuring development by combining indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income into a composite human development index, the HDI. The breakthrough was the creation of a single statistic which was to serve as a frame of reference for both social and economic development. The HDI sets a minimum and a maximum for each dimension, called goalposts, and then shows where each country stands in relation to these goalposts, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. 35 Human Security Centre, 2005, War and Peace in the 21st Century: Human Security Report 2005, Canada/Oxford, University of British Columbia/Oxford University Press.

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today is less than half as likely to be involved in war than it would have been in the 1950s. The Human Security Centre finds that the 1990s was the least violent decade since the Second World War. Many people do not think this is true (because very few objective statistics exist). But beyond the fact that there has been a dramatic decline in war globally, 95% of wars are fought inside countries, the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa. The report also points out that war today is much less deadly than it has ever been before in world history. The Human Security Report 2005 thus gives signs of hope. Why is there less war? Apart from the fact that about a hundred conflicts have ended in the period 1989–2002, it claims that there is less war because there is less government involvement in wars, particularly in Africa; and there is greater activism on the part of the international community and regional organizations. But, having made those points, it says that the fundamental reasons for conflict still remain (particularly in Africa).

State formation I will very briefly make a few historical points. The French might say that we are what we eat, but I am going to say that we are what we are taught. And we use the frames of reference that largely come from the West; particularly those on state formation. Of some five hundred independent political units in Europe by 1500, there were only twenty-five by 1900. In fact, by the end of the eighteenth century, the state had achieved a monopoly of force at the expense of its subject populations. And in the nineteenth century came the democratization of the European state: partly in response to the demands of subject populations for the promotion of more rights; partly at the incentive of leaders (the kings, who performed the same functions as warlords today) to increase the legitimacy of the state, and demand increases in taxes (to fund their external wars). Now this very brief history of Europe, from which we in Africa certainly derive our understanding of how the world works, does not really apply to Africa because in the developed world state formation has been a steady extension of the provision of security, within which the military (and military conquest) played a central role. Therefore it was basically a process of expanding one’s security community by threatening that of the neighbours, or in simple terms something that developed from the inside outwards. And it was heavily dependent on the use of violence, of force. The dominant security paradigm was the protection of the state against external threats. That is how states developed in Europe. That is how we think states should develop everywhere, because that is how most of the textbooks are written. But of course the situation in my part

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of the world is not like that. If we go back just two hundred years, to the time when colonialism came to Africa, security communities and colonial borders did not coincide. And while much is made of the colonial era, it largely consisted of colonization of the capital city. What actually happened was that colonial maps were superimposed on much deeper, fundamental social and cultural maps that exist to this day. These maps were presented and accepted as Africa, and today these divisions are called states. The end result (not only in this part of the world) is little coincidence between the African state and the nation. In fact, colonialism came to Africa at a time when state formation had only just started. Towards the end of the colonial period in the 1950s and 1960s, a new process started that froze African statehood. That was of course the Cold War, during which African states which were unconsolidated were kept in place by superpower rivalry. So the natural development of statehood in Africa never really happened, frozen firstly by the imposition of colonialism and secondly by the Cold War. And when the Cold War ended, and external interests withdrew, the weakness of Africa was exposed. For a brief period there was a quite dramatic increase in violence, because of this weakness of African client states, resulting in the erosion of these states and the creation of so-called failed states. The only thing that kept Somalia together, for example, was the patronage of the Soviet Union followed by that of the United States. And when these disappeared, Somalia basically disappeared. The same applies to a number of African countries. Today there is a resurgence of interest in Africa because of its aluminium wealth. For a period after the Cold War, which we thought would bring stability to Africa, there was a growth of failed and weak states because state and society in Africa are at odds with one another. The canvas of colonialism drew certain lines over African nations, but these were not forged through decades of fighting one another, seeking security from the inside to the outside. On the contrary, African statehood was imposed from outside. The result of this, in recent decades, has been the search for other sources of security (private companies, vigilantes; traditional sources of security such as the Mai Mai or the Lord’s Resistance Army) because there is no central source (state or otherwise). To summarize, there are very important differences between what we are and what we are taught. African states were created by outsiders, and held in place first by colonialism, and then by Cold War rivalry; whereas European states were created by the consolidation and steady expansion of security communities themselves. Africa does not have security communities. The African challenge is thus the creation of basic functioning states, because in many parts of the continent they do not exist. Of course external threats remain,

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and the same dynamics are found between countries as elsewhere in the world. The image of Africa as a group of poor or impoverished countries that only want to be left alone and live in harmony with one another is complete nonsense. They are as defensive of their national security as anybody else.

The international context Meanwhile, of course, the international context has changed. Globalization is weakening the state. Today, there is in one sense a globalized world (with economies run by the IMF and the World Bank); following a period (particularly before the oil shortage of the 1970s and 1980s) when the vogue in Africa was structural adjustment, meaning basically that government was incompetent and corrupt, so NGOs would run it, or it would be privatized (bearing in mind that government itself scarcely existed). All that this achieved was to further weaken the state. In this way, structural adjustment, the massive use of donor funds, in fact contributed to the underdevelopment of Africa. Instead of meeting the primary strategic challenge, which is to develop a functioning state, not necessarily a democratic one, funding undermined the state and weakened its primary responsibility, which is to provide security (no other body can provide security – others can contribute to it). And of course trade flows and investment patterns – if there is no state – can be diverted. Today, broadly speaking, economics rather than politics dominates world affairs. The era of ideology in politics (except for a number of Latin American and African countries) is no longer dominant. The result is the continued modernization of Africa, except for the diaspora communities, which are very powerful. Africa is a net exporter of professionals to the rest of the world – 100,000 per year – and, of course, every year 70,000 technical advisors come and tell us how to develop. One of the issues to be faced in Africa is that instead of following the ASEAN approach we first seek the political kingdom. We want politics first and economics to follow. In reality, these things work the other way around. Many of our responses to development in Africa are top-down, political initiatives, such as those of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African Union, but they are imposed upon a fiction of African states that do not really exist. In fact we have an informal economy, much, much larger than the formal economy, in our part of the world. Africa remains weak and marginal. Governance remains limited to those high-value areas (normally where there is oil, or copper, or something else that can be extracted). These small spheres are well-connected internationally, but the rest of Africa is not. Much of this is responsible for the absence of appropriate

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leadership in Africa. It is our leaders, as a result of our society, who have made different choices than those that have been made in Asia. This is why Africa remains at the bottom of the pile, where it was fifty to sixty years ago. The same levels of development persist in Africa because, particularly in the post-colonial era, our leadership decided to go for massive industrialization and to destroy subsistence agriculture. Policy decisions were well-informed and well-intentioned but they did a tremendous amount of damage. I mentioned that we ‘seek the political kingdom’. There are in Africa many regional organizations, many primarily directed towards economic development and integration; very few making any significant difference on the ground (except in two regions: the Southern African Customs Union and the former francophone zone in West Africa). The result is a tremendous amount of arms (mostly small arms and light weapons), but there is a security vacuum. Nobody dominates, because the state is contested. We were armed by the West to fight proxy wars, but we can now extract our resources and fight our own. So there is a move from liberation to resource wars in Africa (blood diamonds, oil). Resource extraction has been keeping many of Africa’s wars going. Wars have become both more regional and more internal, because borders do not really matter much. And there has been significant criminal engagement, some of which has been pushed back, partly as a result of the war on terror. The state/government continues to withdraw in Africa, to become weaker, and its ability to deliver security and development remains challenged. I return to the report of the Human Security Centre, which notes that at the turn of the century, more people were being killed in wars in sub-Saharan Africa than in the rest of the world combined:

Almost every country across the broad middle belt of the [African] continent – from Somalia in the east to Sierra Leone in the west, from Sudan in the north to Angola in the south – remains trapped in a volatile mix of poverty, crime, unstable and inequitable political institutions, ethnic discrimination, low state capacity and the ‘bad neighbourhoods’ of other crisis-ridden states – all factors associated with increased risk of armed conflict.36

The picture that I sketch demonstrates that there are no easy solutions to the challenges/threats to human security. The first threat, of course, is to individual life – the security of the individual. And then comes the ability to live in freedom and to maximize human potential.

36 Ibid., p. 4.

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Conclusion To sum up, the challenges as I see them are: The creation and consolidation of a minimal state, because only (some

degree of) a functioning state can provide a minimum of security, upon which a human security framework can be built. This is perhaps a very traditional/conservative interpretation, but one that I believe is essentially true. If there is no functioning government, or some state system, you cannot build long-term stability for you, your family and your children to be able to live to their full potential. The building of a security community within the region – collaborative

security. We do not require the comparative security paradigms that have developed, that we have inherited, that framed our understanding of how states should develop. One of the main differences between Africa and Asia (whether we like it or not) is that we need democracy. The history of the last forty to fifty years in Africa is simply that our leaders have proved again and again that systems of accountability need to be established if we are to move forward with development. We need peace, security, development and democracy. We do not need armies in Africa, we need effective police systems. We need systems of accountability and oversight within governments, and we need civil society. We need to focus on conflict prevention, not only on conflict management: the international community and Africans dealing with the Darfurs of the world. The reality is that we should avoid creating such situations in the first place. That, of course, is much more difficult, because of issues of state and sovereignty; and of course the support of the international community. Because of the rise in importance of commodities and the massive investment of China into Africa, there is an opportunity to avoid the conditionalities of the World Bank and the IMF that is going to bring a directive change. Africa will instrumentalize the international focus on commodity prices for its own benefit. Unfortunately, our history would indicate that this would be to the advantage of elites, not of the people. The contribution that UNESCO could make is related to that of civil society and the establishment of accountability structures, because that is where its focus can and should be.

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ARAB STATES

Human security in the Arab States: setting priorities and taking action by Bechir Chourou Professor, University of Tunis-Carthage, Tunisia

Identifying human security priorities in the Arab States The process of identifying human security priorities can be applied to any region. First we need to know what human security is. If we do not know the objective we are trying to achieve then we will miss it. Then we must try to operationalize that definition by identifying specific threats (situations/ acts/events) to human security. Once this list (which can be a generic, theoretical list) is established, then we try to identify those threats that apply to the particular region of interest (in this case the Arab States). And, once the threats are identified, and given the fact that resources are probably not as plentiful as needs, then some sort of priority should be set among these objectives (or threats) to be eliminated. Without a priority schedule, time may be wasting in treating less important aspects of human security. We shall use Taylor Owen’s familiar definition: ‘Human security is the protection of the vital core of all human lives from critical and pervasive environmental, economic, food, health, personal and political threats.’37 On that basis, some scholars have tried to establish a list of threats (direct or indirect) to human security (Table 1).

Table 1: Direct and indirect threats to human security

Direct violence Indirect violence

Violent death/disablement: victims of violent crime, killing of women and children, sexual assault, terrorism, inter-group riots/pogroms/genocide, killing and torture of dissidents, killing of government officials/agents, war casualties

Deprivation: levels of basic needs and entitlements (food, safe drinking water, primary health care, primary education)

Disease: incidence of life-threatening illness (infectious, cardio-vascular, cancer)

37 Taylor Owen, Challenges and Opportunities for Defining and Measuring Human Security, p. 20. http://www.ppl.nl/books/ebooks/UNIDIR_pdf-art2138.pdf

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Dehumanization: slavery and trafficking in women and children; use of child soldiers; physical abuse of women and children (in households); kidnapping, abduction, unlawful detention of political opponents + rigged trials

Drugs: drug addiction

Discrimination and domination: discriminatory laws/practices against minorities and women; banning/rigging elections; subversion of political institutions and the media

International disputes: inter-state tensions/crises (bilateral/regional) + great power tensions/crises

Most destructive weapons: spread of weapons of mass destruction + advanced conventional, small arms, landmines

Natural and man-made disasters

Underdevelopment: low levels of GNP/capita, low GNP growth, inflation, unemployment, inequality, population growth/decline, poverty, at national level; and regional/global economic instability and stagnation + demographic change

Population displacement (national, regional, global): refugees and migration

Environmental degradation (local, national, regional, global)

Source: Kanti Bajpai, 2000, Human Security: Concept and Measurement, Kroc Institute Occasional Paper #19:OP:1 (http://kroc.nd.edu/ocpapers/op_19_1.pdf).

The next step is to find out what threats apply to a particular region, or apply more in a particular region than in another. UNESCO has been very wise in giving the work on human security a regional perspective, because although human beings are the same everywhere (their needs are the same), the situation of people and communities differ from one region to another. Therefore we have to try to identify which needs are more pressing, which threats are more serious (or more severe), in which parts of the world, so that we can orient our actions in the light of these findings. Ordering threats according to severity Here I suggest three main sources of information that we may use in order to understand the human security situation in a particular area. In the social sciences the best method of obtaining data is through surveys, which allow a researcher to find out (through methods that are standardized among academics) what the situation is on a particular issue. But surveys are not always easy to carry out for reasons of time, money, infrastructure, training, etc. The next best method is to rely on official statistics, which provide information on a number of indicators that show the existence, prevalence, or degree of severity of various threats, such as poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and environmental degradation. In fact, this is the information source on which most international and national organizations rely on to make a diagnosis in a particular region. But statistics are not always available, or always reliable, in most countries in the world, in particular in some parts of Africa.

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The third source of information is to rely on the work, writings, or reports prepared by research institutions, academics, social workers and NGOs; as well as international organizations. Civil society is a major source of information on the existence and the degree of severity of threats. Again, most of the information that we have in the Arab States comes from this type of activity, especially the well-known UNDP reports on human development in the Arab States.38 I used these three sources of information, relying mainly on official statistics and the work of colleagues and international organizations, in preparing the report on the state of human security in the Arab states recently published by UNESCO.39 Ordering/classifying/prioritizing threats Prioritizing threats is often difficult because the question is what criteria should be used to say that a particular issue is more important, or should be treated in priority, in relation to another issue. I think that at least two criteria may be used to rank threats. One is the perceptions of the societies themselves. Governments in Africa have often based national policies on their own perceptions of threats/problems; their own definitions of development, without consulting people (or experts, or stakeholders), and as a result many policies have been adopted that were not necessarily beneficial to society, and did not solve the problems they were supposed to solve. Therefore I think that the best source of information is the people themselves, what they perceive to be the main threats in their lives, in their security, based on the definition we proposed with regard to human security. We will find out (as we already know) that these threats will be viewed and defined in light of people’s cultures, values, religion, economic situation, etc. Once we have such a list, we need to classify it on the basis of how people make their own classification; but also on the basis of some universal values – probably the highest value that any human being would hold is to be alive, regardless of their culture, religion or geographic location. I think this holds true for all human beings, including those in the Arab States.

Priorities identified in the Arab region Protection against all forms of direct violence For too many decades thousands of Arabs, most of them civilians, have been and continue to be killed as a result of wars, insurgencies and civil strife, acts of

38 These reports, the most recent of which is Arab Human Development Report 2005: Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World, are available on the United Nations Development Programme website (http://www.undp.org/arabstates/ahdr.shtml). 39 Bechir Chourou, 2005, Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in the Arab States, Paris, UNESCO.

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terrorism or resistance, or as victims of landmines and unspent ordnance. Often violence is the result of, inter alia: intra-regional tensions and crises; states from the region or outside it occupying or seeking to control

territories; regimes clinging to power and seeking to eliminate any form of opposition.

One of the factors contributing to the onset and continuation of violence is the ready availability of weapons supplied to institutional and non-institutional actors (which has been mentioned as also the case in Latin America). Religious fanaticism, short-sighted political intransigence, and rivalries between religious, ethnic and tribal groups are also a major source of deadly violence (especially the rise of groups that use Islam as a rallying cry to follow a political agenda). In-depth analysis of the origin of many of these threats shows that they are the same as those mentioned by my colleague from South Africa: the fact that there is no correspondence between the nation and the state. In many instances in the Arab world we have the same process as the one described in Africa, whereby foreign colonial powers have imposed a state structure on nations, – and the two do not correspond. As a result, we do not have in most instances a definitive state structure per se. The irony is that, as in Latin America, we need to first create the state in order to make the state play a role in preserving the security of its citizens. But, in the form that it has existed so far in the Arab States, the state has been as much a threat to human security as anything else. So rather than provide human security, we need to deal with the fact (or the possibility) that in many parts of the region, the state itself has become a threat to human security. Protection against some forms of indirect violence In the Arab region, two aspects of indirect violence should be given priority. The first is gender equality, because women continue to be second-class citizens if they are considered to be citizens at all. This has to change, even for the simple fact that no country can expect to make any headway if half of its citizens are sidelined. In the Arab States, women constitute 51% of the population, so it is difficult to see how 100% of the people can be made to function when only 49% of them are active. This is something that we have long suffered from and it is about time that we did something about it. The second form of indirect violence is education, together with scientific and technical training. Table 2 gives some comparative indicators:

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Table 2. Comparative Human Development Indicators Developing

countries Least-

developed countries

Arab States

East Asia and the

Pacific

Latin America and the

Caribbean

South Asia

Sub-Saharan Africa

Life expectancy at birth (years) 2003

65.0 52.2 67.0 70.5 71.9 63.4 46.1

Adult literacy rate (% age 15 and above) 2003

73.5 53.6 64.1 90.4 89.6 58.9 60.5

Combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio (%) 2002-03

63 45 62 69 81 56 50

GDP per capita (PPP US$) 2003

4 359 1 328 5 685 5 100 7 404 2 897 1 856

Life expectancy index

0.67 0.45 0.70 0.76 0.78 0.64 0.35

Education index 0.72 0.50 0.61 0.83 0.87 0.58 0.56

GDP index 0.70 0.60 0.72 0.71 0.74 0.67 0.63

HDI value (2003) 0.694 0.518 0.679 0.768 0.797 0.628 0.515

Source: Human Development Report 2005, International Cooperation at a Crossroads: Aid, Trade and Security in an Unequal World, New York, United Nations Development Programme, Table 1.

However, if the Arab world compares favourably with South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with respect to human development indicators, it is still below the levels achieved in East Asia and Latin America. One of the reasons why the Arab States do not rank highly is because women and girls do not attend school and have no access to education yet. So these are the issues we have to deal with immediately – it is already too late in many cases. And the gap between us and the rest of the world is going to increase if we do not take immediate action.

Specific actions to ensure (enhance) human security in the Arab region The first priority is to ensure that people do not die by human intervention. The most unacceptable form of violence that I can think of is when people decide that someone else will die, because they are a political opponent, belong to a certain nationality, tribe, religion, minority group, or whatever.

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Consequently, the first objective that a human security policy should seek is to eliminate the threat of violent death and disablement that hangs over the heads of too many Arabs. Some specific actions that can be taken towards that end are listed below. Playing a more assertive role to bring Israel to end its occupation of Arab

territories, to respect international agreements and United Nations resolutions so as to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, and to put an end to illegal practices such as targeted killings and collective punishments. Resisting attempts by extra-regional powers to dominate and control the

region and its natural resources. Achieving greater cohesion (the need for integration) – if not unity – to give

the above actions a realistic chance of success and, more generally, to ensure that the region has the critical weight that would allow it to play a more effective role on the world scene. Ending such practices as abducting, detaining, trying or killing people for

their political opinions; adopting overdue reforms to establish representative and accountable political institutions and ensuring a periodic and orderly transfer of power; abandoning laws and practices that discriminate against minorities.

Where UNESCO can play a major role (according to its mandate) Accelerate the process of achieving universal access to primary education

(one of the UN Millennium Development Goals), focusing in particular on better access for girls in general and rural girls in particular. Improve access to secondary education (particularly for girls and women). Create institutions of higher learning that have a regional or subregional

vocation to avoid wasteful duplication and ensure more efficient use of resources. These institutions should focus on training and research in science and technology. The Arab world (as well as African countries) has wasted resources by duplicating efforts in terms of university training. Slow down demographic growth rates, which remain high in many Arab

States. Implement existing instruments instituting an Arab common market with

free movement of goods, services, capital and labour and, eventually, a common currency, to achieve integration in the region.

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EASTERN AND WESTERN EUROPE

The human security tale of the two Europes: together at last, but humanly secure?40 by Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh Director, Center for Peace and Human Security, Sciences Po, France

Process The authors of the two reports prepared for UNESCO were given the task of addressing the subjective question of what human security means in Western and Eastern European contexts; as well as the objective question of what is concretely taking place at ground level in the region with regard to human security. This approach stems from the hypothesis that the definition of human security is entirely variable according to region, national and local setting as well as to time in history, something that has been well demonstrated by the various regional reports that UNESCO has commissioned. As such, proposing a fixed definition of human security was specifically avoided. Generally, most of the report writers chose to adhere to a broad definition, which encompasses ‘freedom from fear’ plus ‘freedom from want’ plus ‘a life of dignity.’

The West European team was coordinated by J. Peter Burgess from PRIO (International Peace Research Institute Oslo) in Norway, who brought together twelve academics from various European think tanks and universities. The Central and East European report was edited by Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh and Odette Tomescu-Hatto of Sciences Po (Institut d’Études Politiques) in Paris on the basis of background papers by Arcadie Barbarosie, of the Institute for Public Policy in Moldova, Goran Bašić, research fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade, and Constantin Dudu Ionescu, a former minister of defence in Romania and now of the Institute for Public Policy, Bucharest.

40 This paper is a summary of two reports produced for UNESCO and coordinated by the Ceri Programme for Peace and Human Security (Paris) in 2006: Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in Western Europe (edited by J. Peter Burgess) and Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in Eastern Europe (edited by Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh and Odette Tomescu-Hatto). The author would like to thank the contributors to the reports as well as Moufida Goucha, Claudia Maresia and the team at the Human Security, Democracy and Philosophy Section of UNESCO. All findings have been sourced in the original publications.

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Added value of a human security approach Our challenge was to use the human security perspective to assess national and regional challenges in two very different worlds. Indeed, this approach proved a useful tool for investigating the transition processes of former communist countries, the outcome of integration into the European Union, and even the multiple facets of precariousness, exclusion and poverty within EU countries. A regional approach to human security was also beneficial in that it allowed us to address insecurities in the region concerned in general terms by ignoring national frontiers. Such a perspective helped to identify major security threats that were either common to a large or a particular set of countries or societal groups, or constituted otherwise significant transborder problems. Finally, the human security framework obliged us to ponder the need for very comprehensive policy strategies that necessitate implementation on a multitude of institutional levels and cooperation between the local, national, regional and international dimensions in order to be effective and successful, as threats often proved interdependent. By interdependence, we refer not only to threats that could extend beyond borders to ‘endanger’ another region, but also threats that are multidimensional and multisectoral. Yet, for the teams preparing these reports, identification and prioritization among different policy objectives remained a challenge. Perhaps it was because of the interdependence of threats that attempting to identify the most ‘urgent’ needs was a challenge that the writers failed to solve, or perhaps chose to ignore, given the intellectual and ethical incoherence.

What constitutes a ‘regional’ approach from a human security viewpoint? The challenge was first to define a ‘region’ or a ‘subregion’ from a human security point of view. Using Buzan’s ‘security complex’ (which argues that because of interconnections based on borders, ethnically related populations and historical links, national security is interdependent with regional and international dimensions),41 we sought to reflect on a ‘human security complex’ to bring the level of analysis to the connections between people in a given region. A human security complex evolves when it is possible to identify similar and highly interdependent insecurities among individual human beings within a set of countries in close geographical proximity, or when direct neighbourhoods share a similar historical past in common, an interdependency which cannot be efficiently dealt with at the local or national level alone. We can thus expect to observe insecurities and threats that are:

common to all individuals of the complex (for example the instability of transition and economic collapse after the erosion of the communist bloc, or today the impact of globalization and hence growing competition);

41 Barry Buzan, 1991, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, New York, Harvester Wheatsheaf.

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common to certain clusters of states (for example differences in terms of corruption, state failure or governance crisis between the two clusters of EU member states versus remaining countries without European accession in Eastern and Central Europe); common to certain groups of individuals within the region regardless of the

state they belong to (for example the minority issue of the Roma population, or inequalities and tensions due to ethnic multiculturalism); transborder and cross-regional insecurities and threats (for example

organized crime, smuggling, minor border corruption as an illegal subsistence activity, natural catastrophes, displaced persons and migration, spread of HIV/AIDS) that cannot be dealt with at a national level alone, but instead demand a high degree of multilateral and regional coordination and cooperation.

Conceptual and methodological challenges There were, however a number of conceptual disagreements between members of the teams preparing the two reports, which solicited a lively debate at a conference organized by the Center for Peace and Human Security/Sciences Po with UNESCO on 2 June 2006 in Paris. For example, some warned against ‘securitization’ of development issues, claiming that if they were recognized as a ‘security’ problem, they would effectively become one. Securitizing migration, for example, might in fact have some potentially negative political consequences. Furthermore, some of the responses to HIV/AIDS in the early years included proposals to isolate, quarantine, tattoo and impose travel restrictions on people who were infected with the virus. Following a strict security logic of ‘us and them’, this approach was clearly misguided, not to mention unethical. In the event of a bird flu epidemic in Western Europe, would the EU respond using a similar approach? Similarly, although poverty, social exclusion and deprivation were recognized as serious problems in Western Europe, whether or not it makes sense to talk about them as ‘security’ (even human security) questions garnered less consensus among scholars and policy-makers.

Whether human security was to be measured objectively or subjectively also solicited some debate. If human security is being used in an objective sense, it refers to whether people are in fact threatened in their life, health and welfare. In the subjective sense, however, human security is more linked to what people perceive to be security threats. It may often be the case that these two notions are not in alignment, and that negotiating the boundary between them may pose significant methodological problems. For example, while most citizens in Western Europe are quite secure in objective terms, there is a widespread perception of insecurity, notably associated with issues such as global terrorism. While the teams agreed that perceptions mattered, and perhaps mattered most, we were unable to tackle them in these reports, given the absence of opinion polls and qualitative studies on the subject. We therefore had to rely on common

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sense, as well as the data available through Eurostat, international organizations and national statistical offices to analyse objective human security threats.

Prioritizing human security issues, selecting the parameters to use in identifying priorities and adequately capturing the essence of regional threats posed another set of considerable methodological challenges. Should the top priorities be only ‘urgent’ threats? If so, how was urgency to be defined? Or should they consist only of transnational threats spreading within or across the regions? In the end, it proved very difficult to even decide on priorities for action in general, and more general conclusions and recommendations were geared at multiple audiences: national policy-makers, international institutions and researchers.

A debate also raged on the question of relativity versus universality. Members of the two teams were undecided on the appropriateness of using either relative or absolute baselines in measuring human security. Some believed that using the same term (that of human security) to speak of relative deprivations in Western Europe, or even the problems of the French suburbs, would ‘trivialize’ the urgency of Southern human security crises. Others however countered that whereas in absolute terms, the least secure people in Western Europe may enjoy high levels of human security in comparison to citizens of other regions, in relative terms, those suffering relative poverty in Europe may be just as disadvantaged as those who suffer levels of poverty that are much more extreme in absolute terms. Using an absolute perspective would be construed as misplaced when applying the human security paradigm to Western Europe, a region that may be seen as having reached a kind of post-modern, Kantian paradise. Yet, it was also noted that while homeless people, immigrants or those in some suburban areas in Western Europe may experience fewer absolutely dire human security threats than many people in parts of the developing world, they nonetheless often lacked some of the most basic elements of human security. The weight of relative poverty in Western Europe is massive, and people in dire precariousness are not only in a position of extreme vulnerability, but they are also experiencing decreasing levels of social protection from the states’ security nets.

Europeanization of human security: a North/South East/West debate?

A question of origin: whose concept is it anyway? But perhaps what solicited the most interesting debate was the North/South (or in this case, the East/West) dilemma. Was human security ultimately a concept that had been born within the Western political liberal model and had to be applied/measured against ‘issues’ of the South/East, as some claimed, or was it a universal subject? This debate proved to be the essence of conceptualization of human security, and its relevance, in the future. For the first time, we had

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opened new doors and were creating discomfort in asking industrialized nations to look within. We realized that among political scientists and policy-makers there was a great deal of resistance to the idea of there being a ‘split’ in the North. Human security continued to be seen as a concept minted for the developing world and thus of little relevance to the European region.

Given this philosophical point of departure, a large extent of the Western European Report focused on the search for meaning of the human security paradigm in a Western context. A particular difficulty for one team was that Western Europe was being seen in fact serving as both the object and the source of human security. A concept that had in a sense ‘come back to its origins’, human security was initially said to be created by Western, Northern culture to be applied to non-Western, non-Northern settings. It was said to have emerged from a liberal European tradition regarding politics, society, the role of the state and the citizen’s relationship to the state. Discussing human security in terms of dignity, rights or social entitlements was an approach whose roots stemmed from European philosophical traditions. But this point of departure solicited numerous critiques. Members of the ‘other’ team, for example, pointed out that it was Mahbub ul Haq, a Pakistani, who introduced the human security concept in the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report, and Amartya Sen who took it further in the Commission on Human Security. It was also recognized that major contributions to this subject came from Central America. Maintaining that human security is a concern for the developing world alone, and flows only from North to South, was criticized during the workshop as blatantly ignoring the human security threats within Europe itself. Within the human security paradigm, developed and underdeveloped states did not exist: there were only secure and insecure people. Framing the debate as a North/South (or East/West) debate, rather than a debate about people, was not doing the concept justice.

The image of human security in Western Europe is often given an overly positive image, particularly in EU documentation. The reality is however much more complex. The incapacity of the EU to bring order to its borders and the high relative precariousness among vulnerable populations (children, single mothers, immigrants …) all seem to provide a different picture. Furthermore, workshop participants shared the position that many countries in the North were in fact creating and maintaining insecurities in the South. For example, World Trade Organization policies were cited as potentially having very negative effects on the human security of those in the South, while at the same time ensuring human security for certain groups in the North.

While it was ultimately recognized that the North/West and the South/East both had human security problems, it remains true that the solution to human security in terms of ‘interventions’ or ‘responsibility to protect’ are often framed in ‘North intervening in South’ terms, something that represents a very real fear for

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some countries in the South. Similarly, the teams found through their research that ‘representation’ and ‘demonization’ continued to permeate through available resources. For example, the West European report team members only had at their disposal statistics which they analysed to portray the precarious situation of West European countries. Members of the Central and Eastern Europe team, however, had an arsenal of reports prepared by the EU (often in the context of conditionality for accession), the World Bank, UN agencies and international NGO watchdogs which had already dissected every aspect of shortcomings in the reforms of CEE states. The process of EU accession, as well as the presence of UN agencies that usually work in developing countries, such as the UNDP, meant that much of the information available for CEE countries had some sort of prescriptive tone. A relatively ‘underdeveloped’ region, the CEE and South-Eastern Europe (SEE) had to ‘catch up’ with the ‘other’ Europe. Western Europe, on the other hand, did not have such a benchmark to measure itself against, only perhaps its own ideals. No World Bank, UN, International Crisis Group or Transparency International report was holding Western Europe against this ‘ideal’. This discrepancy, in tone and in the availability of materials, explains much of the differences in analysis between the two reports. We noted this double standard, were not proud of it, and hope to rectify it in the future.

The findings may have differed in analysis and tone; but the result of the project is clearly that the concept has something essential to say about the way we live today. Indeed, one theoretical conclusion that may be drawn from the study is that human security in one sense actually lends itself better to the developed world where mid- or large-scale physical violence is less common as a source of insecurity. Thus, in addition to giving a fresh overview of the parameters of vulnerability in contemporary Europe, the project has provided an opportunity to fruitfully test the universal meaningfulness of the very notion of human security. Human security is both about empirical knowledge and about seeking to engage knowledge. In a way, the application of human security in the context of Western Europe is the ultimate test of the concept. It seeks to contribute to knowledge and impetus for an evolving concept and implicitly argues for its relevance.

Identified issues With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, despite hopes for common growth and solidarity between the two Europes, the democratization process has clearly not eliminated divisions between people in this region. Although the Berlin Wall no longer divides the region politically, an economic divide between rich and poor is becoming firmly entrenched. A ‘welfare curtain’ is replacing the Iron Curtain.

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Rocky transitions with different roads and different destinations Transition from a planned economy to an open society/open market is key to the understanding of human security across the region. Transition, or any kind of institutional change for that matter, is not a linear process and may have many different end roads and different destinations. In Central and Eastern Europe, transitions were multiple: a first phase out of a communist system, followed by another towards democratization and Europeanization. As major reorganizations of state structures and operating procedures, these transitions necessarily brought with them new insecurities and challenges. In some countries change was peaceful, while in others it was accompanied by conflicts and wars and ethnic cleansing. The first transition brought with it feelings of insecurity among people when economies initially collapsed and competition in the context of globalization was unleashed. Suddenly, they were confronted with rampant inflation, huge unemployment due to an increasing number of bankruptcies of former state factories as well as growing inequalities in wealth, income and access to social services. Meanwhile the state was no longer capable of counterbalancing these growing insecurities through public services and social protection systems.

It is possible to assert that most CEE countries have by now ‘graduated’ from the first transition process and are now in various stages of consolidation, transitioning ‘into’ the European Union. With the May 2004 enlargement of the EU to eight formerly post-communist states, the face of Europe underwent a historic transformation. Yet, while the removal of the Soviet-type regimes improved the prospects for democratization in Eastern and Central Europe, the results have often been mixed.

Central and Eastern European countries can be divided in four categories. The CEE countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and the three Baltic states), which have enjoyed a more or less successful transition in the 1990s and moved towards a stable and consolidated democracy – ending with or anticipating accession into the EU. Nevertheless, if the overall standard of living of their citizens has increased during the past years, new problems have arisen as the result of the abrupt transformation of society and norms which have come from EU requirements and from the Europeanization process itself. Romania and Bulgaria, two countries that during the past decade have moved slowly from illiberal/pseudo-democracy to liberal democracy, represent the second group of countries. Both have undergone a painful and long transition paved with interethnic conflicts and several economic crises before they chose the way of liberal democracy. A third group consists of the Western Balkans – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – for which the transition process coincided with the beginning of violent inter-ethnic conflicts and the ensuing criminalization of the economy. Yet all the former Yugoslav states have made

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significant progress in recent years towards national reconciliation and reconstruction. The fourth group of countries consists of a mixed landscape of an illiberal democracy with an uncertain future (Ukraine), consolidated authoritarian regime which is thought to repress freedom of expression and political liberties for its citizens (Belarus) and a failing state with weak institutional structures, lack of political authority, with weak institutions that perform poorly in the delivery of public goods, and lack of control over a significant portion of their territory, as is the case of Transnistria within the Republic of Moldova.

Together at last, but secure? Europeanization as the ideal human security end state? With the dissolution of the communist regimes in the CEE, faith in ‘democracy’ became almost a religious belief for the people in the region as well as for their political elites, and the slogan of the ‘return to Europe’ became the mantra of the revolutions of 1989–91. Democratization became associated directly with ‘Europeanization’, which was seen as the surest way to ‘catch up’ with the West. In practical terms, what liberal democracy and democratization meant for Eastern Europeans was to be part of the ‘democratic confederation of democratic people’ –represented by the EU and NATO. The international organizations’ framework was seen as a cure for the weak, small and divided peoples of the region, a way to overcome their geo-strategic predicament and to achieve security and prosperity.

For EU candidate states and potential candidates, conditionality was seen as one of the most powerful mechanisms of Europeanization. Conditionality represents the coercive mechanism of Europeanization and aims to change the behaviour of actors through a logic where compliance is rewarded, and non-compliance leads to the withholding of rewards, or even sanctions. However, the benefits or the potential rewards of Europeanization and democratization were often costly for individuals in CEE countries. While accession to the EU was seen as signifying prosperity, law and order, and other ‘goods’ associated with the Western model of democracy and development, it is unclear whether accession by itself is compatible with human security goals. While Europeanization and human security both address physical, economic and social security issues and use regional approaches to reach their larger goals, human security concentrates on the human predicaments and not on the needs of state reforms. It is a bottom-up approach based on consensus, and not brought down with conditionalities. The EU focus on state-building and institutional capacity could be seen as a different type of approach. Moreover, even though Europeanization is a process encompassing democratization, economic development and the establishment of a specific legal agenda, the short-term effects of accession may lead to painful consequences, such as rapid increases in unemployment and decreases in unemployment coverage. Thus, Europeanization should not be seen as

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synonymous with human securitization. That is to say, EU membership was not automatically going to solve human security problems; it was not going to mean even distribution of benefits across people, let alone states.

But the illusion of rewards from conditionality aside, rapprochement of the CEE to the EU has not led to negative consequences only. One of the conclusions drawn in the UNESCO study was that, for the CEE countries, geographical proximity plays an important role at present and will do so in future. The external factor of having a rich country as a direct neighbour has a significant influence on a country’s internal growth and wealth. Indeed, the simple fact of having a wealthy neighbour renders important opportunities for attracting investment, developing trade relations or earning from migratory labour, whereas a country surrounded by poor neighbours cannot profit from such economic benefits. As a consequence, successful reform and growth in prosperity are best achieved by means of a regional approach. EU integration or prospects for it have indeed been a positive force for growth. Distribution and targeting of that growth to deal with human insecurities, however, was left to the skills of national governments, prompted by international organizations working in those countries. The requirement to adopt the Copenhagen criteria42 was one factor that bolstered institutional, political, economic and social reforms in the candidate states to the European Union. Another factor was close geographical proximity to the Western EU member states, which could, in theory, foster growth in wealth and well-being among border countries as compared to countries of the former communist bloc that do not share a common border with an EU member state.

Yet there is another side to the coin of geographical proximity and human security potentially creating insecurities, which we can illustrate with a simple example: the moment when an Eastern European country joins the European Union may constitute a positive chance for its further Eastern neighbour to equally experience an upsurge in economic growth in the future. However, the fact that this neighbouring country does not itself join the European Union may be a strong indicator of its being a rather weak or corrupt state with an inefficient security sector. Thus, this country may on the one hand constitute a source of instability in terms of trafficking, organized crime and smuggling, but also generate increasing migration flows towards the more prosperous EU member state from an economic point of view. As a consequence, the European Union imposes the ‘Schengen acquis’ –border control and visa regimes – to control migration flows and enforce the control of the new external European

42 In June 1993, EU leaders meeting in Copenhagen set three criteria that any candidate country must meet before it can join the Union. First, it must have stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for minorities. Second, it must have a functioning market economy. Third, it must take on board all the acquis (shared rights and obligations) and support the various aims of the Union. In addition, it must have a public administration capable of applying and managing EU laws in practice.

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borders. This improvement in pure security terms may nevertheless inhibit trans-border trade flows and thus deprive the local population at the periphery of the new Eastern EU neighbour of important daily revenues. Such a development may consequently enhance the appearance of illegal activities among the local population, which finds itself under pressure to ensure daily subsistence, a process that may enter into a vicious cycle as EU border controls are reinforced etc. This was observed in the cases of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia and their Eastern neighbours, as well as, for example, between Romania and the Republic of Moldova.

The ‘Other Europe’ as less than a human security nirvana Furthermore, given the human security threats that continue to challenge Western Europe, it may not make sense to assume that Western Europe has achieved some kind of human security ‘nirvana’. Western democracies themselves are undergoing such challenges as political disaffection, social fragmentation and exposure to global economic pressure. All together these bring increased uncertainty for individuals.

It appears that Western Europe has resolved some of its human security problems, a process that took several decades, even centuries, to achieve in some cases despite a long-standing tradition of political security. Sixty years since Europe was created, it may be possible to learn how the project was constructed over time, and draw lessons for other regions. Yet analysing human and political security in Europe may call into question some of the ‘achievements’ of liberal democracy that may be taken for granted, which may be the obvious goals of transition states. At the very least, it would be an incorrect assumption to maintain that once a country ‘gets in’ to Europe, it will have achieved human security.

Western Europe, understood for the report to mean the countries of the European Union prior to the 2004 enlargement, have their own set of human insecurities, despite being the ideal of the CEE countries. In fact, a new kind of precariousness is touching Europe. The robust structures of social support that had become a commonplace in the post-war European welfare state are being increasingly challenged in nearly invisible ways. The society-based guarantees of industrial late modernity are gradually giving way to more economic, political, social, cultural and even moral vulnerability. Although Europeans still hold fast to the basic ideas of security in terms of classical principles of economic and social welfare, these principles map less and less onto the globalized reality that shapes European lives.

The explanations for this evolution are many and discordant. Globalization in its various forms, the onslaught of the knowledge society and the mutation from an economy of production to one of service are certainly central factors. These changes bring with them the emergence of new forms of identity at odds with

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traditional social and political systems that have failed to account for their human sides. Traditional territorial organization of Western European society has metamorphosed by migration within, into and out of Europe. New forms of poverty, traversing conventional class lines, threaten pockets of communities. New forms of work and new forms of cultural organization lead to instability in social and cultural positions. The human security tale of the two Europes: each insecure within and more insecure together? Economic security

Western Europe: A mostly middle-class society, where poverty, unemployment and income inequality is mostly a female, youth, elderly and ‘Southern’ issue Data from the 2003 European Social Survey43 confirm the existence of three different Western Europes, with different stages of socio-economic development. The Scandinavian countries, on average, are more robust than Continental Europe, which in turn performs relatively better than Southern Europe. Exceptions to this classification are the United Kingdom and Ireland, which show higher poverty, but also higher employment rates, than their partners in Continental Europe. GDP per capita in Western Europe varies greatly from country to country. It is much higher than the EU-15 average (109 PPS44) in Luxembourg (234), but clearly lower in Portugal (73), Greece (81), Spain (97) and Italy (108). If income were equally distributed among Western European nations (and if purchasing power and household composition were the same), only a minority of citizens would find themselves in households below the threshold of €6,000 (6%) or between €6,000 and €12,000 per year (12%). (€6,000 per year is a threshold often used by many Western European countries to grant tax exemptions for citizens whose revenues are considered too low to participate in the national taxation system.) The majority of people, by contrast, would find themselves in low- and middle-income households (71% would be in households between €12,000 and €60,000), while only a small proportion would be in high-income households (11%). Employment rates are higher in the Scandinavian countries (73%) and lower in Continental (66%) and Southern Europe (61%). The Mediterranean countries also show higher total unemployment rates (8.9%) than Continental (6.0%) and Scandinavian Europe (6.1%). In Western Europe, youth unemployment is usually between two and three times higher than total unemployment rates. It is

43 http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/ 44 GDP per capita in purchasing power standards (PPS), 2003.

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especially high in Greece (26.8%), Spain (24.6%), France (23.7%), Italy (23.7%) and Finland (21.8%), but no country is an exception. On average, the Scandinavian countries have the lowest rates of long-term unemployment (1.3%), followed by Continental (2.2%) and Southern Europe (4.1%). Female unemployment is usually higher than male unemployment, especially in Southern Europe (12.2%). Female part-time employment is 15% in Southern Europe, 33% in Scandinavian countries and 43% in Continental Europe. Despite the positive role that part-time employment can play for women, it also inevitably implies the acquisition of lower social security rights (such as insufficient pension contributions), which no country, at the moment, is able to ensure to its part-time workers.

Income inequality is higher in the Mediterranean countries (6.0), while it is lower in Continental (4.3) and in Scandinavian Europe (3.6). Here, it is perhaps interesting to note the presence of higher income inequality in the UK (5.3). The poverty rate is 21% in Southern Europe, 16% in Continental Europe and 12% in Scandinavian countries. As could be expected, women in Western Europe are more at risk of poverty than men. Poverty among the young is also particularly high in Germany (23%) and the Netherlands (20%), while elderly poverty is extraordinarily high in Southern Europe (26%), but also in Ireland (41%). The best performance in poverty reduction is that of the Scandinavian welfare states (–57%), followed by welfare institutions in Continental Europe (–45%), and Southern Europe (–17%). Interestingly, the performance of the German (–35%) and the British (–38%) welfare state does not seem to differ significantly, even though they have two different welfare regimes (Germany conservative; UK liberal welfare), which tackle poverty in different ways with different outcomes.

Central and Eastern Europe: Still a high number of people living below national poverty lines despite some recovery, and an increasingly insecure labour market, especially for women

Even though in the communist past, poverty was ‘theoretically non-existent’, poverty rates are today significantly higher than in Western Europe in all CEE countries. The percentage of people living below national poverty lines is high especially in Albania (25.4% below the line, while 4.7% are extremely poor), in Bosnia and Herzegovina (19.5 %), Macedonia (30.2%), Ukraine (29%) and Romania (28.9%) (various years, either 2002 and 2003). Around 10% of the population in Serbia and Montenegro, and 12% of the population in Kosovo, live in extreme poverty (defined by the World Bank as people who cannot afford a minimum food basket that provides 2,100 calories per adult per day). Living standards have improved significantly in recent years but have not reached 1995 levels for many: in Bulgaria poverty, which had escalated to 36% in 1997, fell by nearly two-thirds to 12.8% but still remains at twice the levels of 1995.

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In 2004, the national minimum wage (converted into euros) ranged from a monthly €491.45 in Slovenia to €61.43 in Bulgaria. Here, as in Western Europe, countries can be grouped: high statutory minimum wage rates (between €491 and €190) in Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland; medium rates (between €162 and €120) in Slovakia and the three Baltic states; and poor rates (between €69 and €61) in Romania and Bulgaria. The region continues to be characterized by inequality in the distribution of income. In 2003, on average the richest 10% of households received more than 30% of the total income.

Employment does not always ensure adequate protection against poverty. For example, 68% of the poor in Moldova live in households where the head of household is employed. Households headed by agricultural workers are generally exposed to the highest risk of poverty. Employment is no longer guaranteed by the state. In the early years of the transition period, when unemployment was still low, many countries in the region established funds that provided unemployment benefits and labour market support. But economic crisis led to unemployment rising to levels that did not allow these systems to function, increasing the level of impoverishment of the unemployed. Employment protection legislation generally remains strong mainly because of the socialist past. Yet, with the winds of change, laws are being modified to relax procedures for hiring and firing. Enforcement of protective legislation is especially lax in the fast-growing private sector where unions are weak and many workers are unaware of their rights.

Although high unemployment afflicts both women and men in the region, women suffer to a greater extent because of growing gender disparities. Unemployment rates among women are especially high in Moldova (68%) Slovakia (60%), the Czech Republic (52%) and Poland (51%). This may be partly caused by a return to traditional values which has intensified the inequalities of women’s participation in the economy, and by lack of access to professional associations or informal networks that help to strengthen careers. Gender disparities are also evident in average earnings. Women’s wages can be 20% to 50% lower than men’s. Women are concentrated in the low-paid state sector, or in the rapidly growing sphere of informal employment, which brings with it reduced labour rights and few social benefits. Transition, causing interruptions in state financing, has also added to women’s double burden of earning income and household chores by reducing the number of social services available to working mothers. In Albania, for example, the number of kindergartens fell by 42% between 1990 and 2000. Environmental security

Western Europe: Scarcity of resources, air pollution and risks associated with global climate change

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Three interrelated problems can be identified as threats to Western European environmental security: risks caused by the scarcity of resources, risks posed by air pollution, and risks associated with global climate change. All three threaten not only the productive capacity of the region, but also the health and well-being of its population.

Europe is heavily dependent on natural resources from other parts of the globe and is the world’s largest importer of oil and gas, imports accounting for approximately 50% of current energy consumption and expected to rise to about 70% by 2030. Indeed, Europe is disproportionately more responsible for the consumption of global resources than almost any other region, and as such is an active contributor to environmental insecurity outside its borders. Given the limited population growth in Western Europe, the main driving forces behind resource consumption are economic growth and development patterns. Production activities from industry and agriculture are two primary contributors to environmental stress, both in terms of consumption and pollution. However, with almost three-quarters of Europe’s population living in urban and suburban areas, increasing urbanization is also placing an added stress on the natural environment. As the average number of persons per household is decreasing, the average household currently uses more energy and water and generates more waste per person than ever before. Energy consumption is also increasing with the continued growth of the transport and service sectors. The threats posed by resource scarcity are no more evident than in the case of current water stress in Europe. While the region has yet to experience severe water shortages, the imbalance between supply and demand has already created hydrological ‘hot spots’, where local water abstractions far exceed supply. Such overexploitation contributes to the deterioration of water quality and the drying out of water courses. High concentrations of hazardous substances, including pesticides and heavy metals, are still found in many European waters.

In Western Europe, high concentrations of fine particulate matter and ground-level ozone have had ramifications for the health and well-being of the population. It is estimated that approximately 350,000 people died prematurely in the European Union in 2000 due to outdoor air pollution of fine particulate matter alone. The primary contributors to air pollution are the transport sector and industry. While emissions of air pollutants and acidifying gases have been reduced in Europe over the past years, concentrations of these pollutants remain high, continuing to expose populations to concentrations that reduce life expectancy, cause premature death and widespread aggravation to health.

The threats posed by climate change to human health and well-being in Western Europe are most directly demonstrated by the impact that heatwaves and floods have already had in the region. The European heatwave of 2003 is reported to have resulted in more than 35,000 excess deaths, particularly among the elderly.

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Human-induced contributions to the atmosphere are considered to have doubled the risk of heatwaves of such magnitude in the future, suggesting that the number of excess deaths in Europe due to heat can also be expected to rise over the coming years. Temperature rise also raises the risk of floods and of being exposed to new infectious diseases, as well as increasing the incidence of such disorders as allergies and asthma.

Central and Eastern Europe: Different energy crisis, air and water pollution

Years of environmental neglect, military conflicts and the instability that followed have meant that people in the region continue to face three major problems: energy insecurity, air pollution and water pollution. Yet regional differences and challenges across the CEE countries are notable. The future EU member states Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania are facing major challenges in flood management, earthquake risks and an outstanding legacy of industrial pollution, especially in the mining industry. The water quality has often been judged as unacceptable by international monitoring companies. The Western Balkan countries all face fiscal and affordability challenges in improving wastewater treatment, largely absent until 1990. In Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine, the principle challenges are industrial pollution, sustainable land and energy security for people.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, a number of CEE countries have experienced serious difficulties in matching the constant increase in demand for energy with the supply. For Albania and Moldova in particular, a looming energy crisis is high on the agenda of public concern, having acquired worrying proportions for the country as a whole and in particular for affected communities. In Albania, for example, the consumption of energy per capita was reduced by one-third in 2000 in comparison with 1990, mainly attributable to electricity supply shortages. In Albania, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Romania the energy consumption is almost half that of Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Estonia.

The energy crisis stems from the fact that there are few alternative energy sources, as well as from the continued wasteful use of energy resources, a mindset from before 1990 when energy was largely subsidized. Today the import of energy poses a problem in terms of costs, especially for communities. The economic difficulties of the transition period led to a deterioration in maintenance as well as in the delivery of water and wastewater treatment in municipalities. The closure of heavy industry facilities left behind considerable industrial pollution, which was only monitored by environment institutions by the end of 1990s under pressure from the international community (especially for EU accession group countries). The new member states have now all adopted the EU environmental legislation, but challenges remain in the

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improvement of institutions and the mobilization of financial resources needed to meet stringent EU standards.

Air pollution remains a problem for all Central European countries. Carbon dioxide emissions have decreased very little since the 1980s and remain especially high in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine. Access to improved water sources is a problem mainly faced by the population in Romania and Moldova where only 57% of the total population and only 16% in rural areas have such access. Generally speaking, poverty and environment are related through a complex relationship. Poor people suffer most when water, air and land are polluted, as they are most directly dependent on natural resources, are often exposed to environmental hazards, and are the least capable of coping when they occur. Health security Western Europe: Lifestyle risks, especially among the poor, HIV/AIDS on

the rise and the anticipation of the bird flu epidemic

Over the course of the twentieth century, Western Europe has seen a rise in living standards and life expectancy at birth, often associated with high levels of prosperity in the region and highly developed social security, public health and health care systems. According to Eurostat data, between the years 1993 and 2003, life expectancy at birth among the EU-15 has risen from 73.4 years to an estimated value of 76.0 years. Between the same years, infant mortality rates have dropped from a provisional value of 6.4 per 1,000 births, to an estimated value of 4.3. In addition, 88.6% of the population self-identify as having very good, good or fair health. These indicators would suggest that in a global perspective, Western Europe experiences relatively good health.

However, despite these indicators, Western Europe continues to experience health insecurity. Indeed, in Western Europe, obesity is on the rise, threatening to become an epidemic in its own right. Of nine European countries surveyed by Eurostat, all witnessed a rise in the percentage of overweight people between 1998 and 2001. Cancer also remains a major cause of illness and death, the cancer incidence rate per 100,000 persons in the EU-15 totalling 338.83 according to 2006 statistics. What is significant, however, is that these threats to health are generally experienced disproportionately by the poor and marginalized segments of the population. Studies reveal that lower socio-economic groups throughout Europe experience higher mortality rates – including a higher risk of mortality due to cardiovascular disease, shorter life expectancy, higher self-assessed morbidity rates, a higher prevalence of most chronic conditions, and a higher prevalence of mental health problems and disability as well as lifestyle risks. What this underscores is the importance of an

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approach to health security that not only focuses on treatment and containment, but also seeks to identify and address the structural roots of insecurity.

Although the latter half of the 1990s witnessed a relative stabilization of newly reported HIV/AIDS cases in Western Europe, recent trends indicate that this number is beginning to rise, having increased by more than 23% between 2001 and 2004. By the end of 2003, 460,000 to 730,000 adults and children were living with HIV/AIDS in Western Europe, and between 13,000 and 37,000 adults and children were newly infected. As in Central and Eastern Europe, the number of people who were infected through heterosexual contact increased by 122% between 1997 and 2002. From those countries in which data are available, the proportion of women among people newly diagnosed with HIV infection increased from 25% in 1997 to 38% in 2002. Injecting drug use also remains an important component in transmission, more than 10% of newly diagnosed HIV cases in 2002 being attributed to this. Tuberculosis specifically tends to be concentrated in large cities that have higher rates of HIV, immigration, homelessness and overcrowding than other areas. Poverty also remains an important risk factor in transmitting both diseases. In the case of HIV/AIDS this takes the form of limited knowledge and lack of access to prevention and treatment, while in the case of TB it constitutes poor hygiene, malnutrition and overcrowding. The increase in HIV/AIDS cases can be attributed to a combination of ‘treatment optimism’ and ‘prevention fatigue’ as well as declines in prevention funding and campaigns, which has contributed to a rise in high-risk behaviour, particularly among men who have sex with men. In addition, despite the accessibility of treatment, an increased number of people living with HIV/AIDS are seeking medical treatment only at advanced stages of infection, largely limiting the beneficial effects of therapy.

While the threat of a human influenza pandemic remains largely theoretical at the moment, avian influenza remains a formidable risk to health security, particularly from the standpoint of anticipation. The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a pandemic alert, and although the highly pathogenic strain of the virus known as H5N1, which is spreading through Europe, is currently considered to be species-specific, it remains a cause for alarm for two reasons: first because there have been cases where the virus has been passed from birds to humans with severe consequences to health, including death. Second, although currently a theoretical risk, the virus could genetically mutate, enabling it to cross the species barrier and in the worst-case scenario become an airborne virus easily transmitted from one person to another. In Europe, the existence of the H5N1 virus has already been confirmed in wild bird populations in a number of countries and has the potential to spread further through migratory patterns. Outbreaks in backyard flocks pose a heightened risk of infection for humans due to the shared environment between poultry, wild birds and people. In addition, deaths are not always recognized as being a result of avian influenza and

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frequent absence of compensation to farmers for destroyed birds may discourage some owners from reporting suspected cases. Central and Eastern Europe: Gaps in life expectancy, shortage of

medical personnel and looming HIV/AIDS crisis

With the eastern enlargement of the EU, more attention is being drawn to the fact that the citizens of the less wealthy CEE countries have poorer health and a shorter life expectancy than those in Western Europe. In addition to the East/West gap in health, differences in health between socio-economic groups have increased in many countries as indicators such as education, employment and lifestyle affect health.

Transition had a negative impact on life expectancy at birth for Belarus and Ukraine and a more positive one in Slovenia, TFYR Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albania. The picture in other former centralized economies is mixed, with high performances in Slovenia, TFYR Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albania. If the life expectancy at birth across the region during the past thirty years is compared, there are still some large gaps in improvements between Central Europe (Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland) and Eastern Europe (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine). In the CEE, 2003 data show the lowest level of life expectancy at birth is in Ukraine (66.1 years), followed by Moldova (67.7) and Belarus (68.1). The highest level is observed in Slovenia (76.4), the Czech Republic (75.6), Croatia (75.0) and Poland (74.3). The infant and under-5 mortality rates have considerably decreased in the region during the past thirty years. Nevertheless, there are still remarkable gaps between Eastern Europe and Central Europe. Moldova and Albania registered the highest rate for both infant mortality and mortality of under-5s in 2003.

Circulatory diseases represent one of the leading causes of death in Eastern Europe, with more than 50% of people likely to die from such diseases. Tuberculosis is another common disease. While in Central Europe, the TB prevalence and incidence are relatively low, in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine the incidence reached respectively 146, 138 and 101 cases per 100,000 population in 2005. A major source of concern for the CEE health system today is the lack of medical personnel, especially troubling in Bosnia and Herzegovina (one physician per 1,000 people in 2003), Croatia (two) and Romania (two). This may be mainly due to the extensive brain drain at the beginning of the 1990s when a large part of the medical personnel left the region for better employment opportunities in Western countries.

The rising number of populations infected with HIV/AIDS is another health vulnerability for the CEE, especially given the exploding growth in neighbouring Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. According

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to UNAIDS and HIV/AIDS Surveillance in Europe, ten years ago there were 183 registered cases of HIV in Ukraine and by mid-2004 there were more than 68,000, with many more probably unregistered. With 1.4%, Ukraine has the largest number of HIV prevalence among adults 15–49 years of age, and 40% of those infected are women. Nevertheless, according to 2004 statistics, Central Europe has been relatively spared by the epidemic, with the incidence of both AIDS cases and newly diagnosed HIV infections remaining low. However, this region accounts for the largest proportion of paediatric AIDS cases following an outbreak of infection among young children in hospitals in Romania around 1990, which was the legacy of communist practices of administrating blood transfusions as a way of keeping children healthy in orphanages. Although these transfusions were thought to boost the immune system, some of them were contaminated with HIV. Today, whilst Romania has relatively low rates of HIV, it still has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS among children in Europe. AIDS orphans are often stigmatized in the community, but they also now benefit from the world’s largest paediatric AIDS clinic treating 600 patients with antiretroviral drugs. In the CEE, there has been a sharp drop in the number of cases amongst injecting drug users but also a sharp increase in cases attributed to heterosexual contact. Given the high odds of transmission through needle sharing, the fact that young people are also sexually active, the lack of motivated HIV prevention work and the high levels of sexually transmitted infections in the wider population, a looming HIV and AIDS epidemic may be unavoidable. Community security

Western Europe: European tolerance or rising identity conflicts The Dutch case, though unique in itself, demonstrates a number of similarities with other cultural settings in Western Europe where tensions between ethnic groups have emerged during the last decade. As in many other European states, Dutch cultural identity was first problematized or questioned upon the arrival of migrants, particularly Muslims from North Africa. While negotiation of identity boundaries was taking place, many people experienced the need to express their identities in relation to a presumed or imagined threat, which emerged from an unsuccessful process of integration of migrants. When boundaries remain unclear and people fear domination by ‘others’ in the process of their identity construction, then questions of security of identity tend to arise, as in the case of ‘native Dutch’ and ‘Muslim’ identities. For most Dutch and Europeans, ‘tolerance’ is a popular typical virtue and an essential part of identity, a central notion of liberal European cultural heritage. But it also serves as a core boundary marker of identity for Europeans towards themselves and towards ‘others’. Muslims are seen as intolerant towards Europeans while Muslims and other immigrants are said to enjoy all possible fruits of tolerance, at the expense

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of natives. All the freedoms fought for in the 1960s, such as women’s emancipation and liberation from religious constraints, are assumed to be at risk by Muslims who would not agree with these freedoms. These conceptions of boundaries of identity, mixed with conceptions of tolerance/intolerance, have instigated many tensions among ‘native’ and ‘migrant’ communities in Western Europe.

Given the rapid and rather extreme transition of a public discourse of cultural relativism and tolerance to a discourse emphasizing integration and assimilation and the closing of state borders for migration, the Dutch case exemplifies tendencies toward insecurity present in several countries in Western Europe. This is illustrated by the 2005 riots in the French suburbs as well as the 2006 German discussion about the security of teachers and children in multi-ethnic public schools. The recent transnational and international controversy over cartoons published in Denmark is a case in point in how these cultural insecurities spread across nations. Finally, the threat of terror attacks (Madrid, London, political murders in the Netherlands) and the corresponding public and political responses make clear that the present insecurity over identity issues have a deep impact on people’s sense of physical security and freedom from fear. Central and Eastern Europe: Need for protection of minority groups,

problems of multiculturalism, and the insecurity of exclusion among the Roma Given the multicultural diversity and the history of ethnic conflicts in the region, the protection of minorities is at once a major regional issue, an issue that touches upon education and linguistic rights, and an issue that portrays the state of ‘participation’ in state affairs. Yet, given the often marked disparity between official and unofficial statistics on the size of different minority populations, devising clear strategies to address the needs of minority populations remains a challenge. Since the 1990s, most Central European and Baltic states have made considerable progress in regulating the status of minority communities, as addressing these issues is obligatory in moving towards accession to the EU. Instruments for minority protection such as the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (Council of Europe, 1995) and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Council of Europe, 1992) exist at the regional level and many countries across the region including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and Ukraine have also established laws on the protection of ethnic minorities. Croatia, for example, passed a constitutional law in 1992 on the protection of ethnic and national minorities, and Macedonia has adopted multiculturalism as one of its constitutional principles, setting it apart as the only Western Balkan state to have

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made such a specific commitment to promoting multiculturalism. This has taken place through the strengthening of democratic institutions and the development of a multi-party system in which political parties of ethnic minorities have held powerful positions but also through open – then resolved – conflicts between ethnic Macedonians and members of the Albanian minority.

The presence of human rights violations among ethnic groups however continues to be a particularly troubling reality in the region. There is a trend towards ethnic segregation and more ethnically homogeneous regions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1991–2005), a shift that may suggest the strengthening of an ‘us-them’ sentiment in the region. Although all the states in the region are ethnically heterogeneous, historical multiculturality may not have been assimilated as a social value but as an obstacle to social development. In the Western Balkans, conflicts of the past decade led to a change in the ethnic structure of the population. All three nationalities within Bosnia and Herzegovina today (Serb, Croat and Bosniak) accept the legitimacy of the state following the 1995 Dayton Agreements, but the complicated constitutional and legal system, cantonization of the country and parallelism of power and institutions imply confederal relations and weak central authorities. At the same time, social cohesion remains fragile. What used to be a truly multicultural community, where ethnic values had fused and where the percentage of marriages among members of different ethnic groups and religions was exceptionally high, has become an ethnically divided society. Segregation remains the main problem of reconstruction in Bosnia, and the return of citizens to places where they lived before the war does not proceed at the rate that could guarantee the former geographical distribution of ethnic groups. In the meantime, the reconstruction of demolished religious and cultural facilities is progressing with strong resistance from the local majority.

The Roma, the only ethnic and cultural community whose members live in all CEE states, continue to face serious levels of material and structural poverty. According to a UNDP report, poverty rates among Roma populations are much higher than in majority groups in all countries of the region. Extreme poverty among the Roma is particularly high in Albania (39%), Serbia (26%) and Romania (20%). The Roma are faced with structural poverty directly resulting from social organization and institutions, but also closely connected with political, legal, economic, ethnic and religious parameters. Despite national, international and regional attention paid to the question of the Roma minority and significant steps towards improvements of their situation, this minority continues to suffer from the highest levels of unemployment and lack of enrolment for children in schools. In spite of the new legislative arsenal, few Roma can rely on official protection and they are often victims of police brutality. These problems are especially acute in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, notwithstanding the fact that all three countries have adopted

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special programmes targeting social integration and poverty eradication among the Roma. Hungary, in the meantime, remains the example of good practice regarding Roma integration. Despite the existence of chronic poverty as a consequence of past discrimination, Hungarian programmes have positively improved the status of most Roma families over a relatively short period. Since 1991, Romania has also taken significant steps towards adopting affirmative action measures which made it possible for all minorities, including the Roma, to be represented in parliament and at national and local levels. Public prejudices, however, have been more difficult to overcome, and opinion polls continue to show mistrust among majority populations, a sentiment of intolerance which is occasionally expressed as racism and segregation. Although they did not take part in the conflicts of the warring parties, the Roma were collateral victims in the recent conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, but their suffering was not registered in official accounts. Lack of reliable data on the number and existence of the Roma in official sources may in fact be part of state efforts to conceal the actual socio-economic situation, the resolution of which would require considerable funding and social policy. Personal security Western Europe: Trade-off between security and civil liberties

Like tolerance, liberty is a cornerstone of modern European society. However, the post-Cold War political landscape, pressures of globalization, and the configuration of socio-economic and political conditions are challenging many of the prevalent liberal universalist ideas and principles in today’s Europe. Threats from terrorism, the resurgence of ethno-centric nationalism, and other social problems imply, both directly and indirectly, that threats to personal liberties may be considered as one of the main concerns with respect to human security in Western Europe today. The possible trade-off between the protection of national security and public order, on the one hand, and the protection of the fundamental human rights of freedom of expression, assembly and association, on the other, requires a human security approach.

Europeans in general enjoy freedom of opinion and expression. Exercising these rights is considered fundamental and is generally encouraged, both on a personal level, as well as through the media and other channels. In most Western European states, racially defamatory, contemptuous or offensive speech is illegal and/or otherwise restricted on the grounds that it constitutes intentional infliction of emotional suffering and is thus a violation of the basic human rights of others. Yet in an increasingly multicultural Europe, with the resurgence of social tensions and far-right movements, many European states are facing increasing challenges in balancing constitutional guarantees of equal liberty and

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non-discrimination. The exercise of freedom of expression in Europe may furthermore have direct security repercussions in terms of internal and external reactions, as was demonstrated recently in the reactions to the publication of religious caricatures in some European newspapers. Hence, while the principle of freedom of expression is irrefutable and at the very heart of democracy, and as such should be defended all over the world, efforts must be made in Europe, on national as well as supra-national levels, to promote dialogue among cultures and religions, within as well as beyond its borders. It is essential that the principle of freedom of expression does not stand in opposition to the principle of respect for individual moral and religious convictions.

Another growing concern in the trade-off between political security and personal liberty is the collection, exchange and availability of personal data as a response to threats of terrorism and gross crime violations. These data range from biometrics to behavioural patterns, collected both at national and EU levels, to fulfil so-called high standards of security (as set by Article 29 of the EU Treaty). Although data exchanges have been an essential counterweight to a new area of free movement of people, such security policies also raise a wide range of concerns. Personal privacy can be violated when entire populations, including citizens, foreigners and (im)migrants, are submitted to a growing intrusion into their private lives. The protection of data may be jeopardized by political interests or institutional incompetence, which may lead to discrimination. These have taken an extra-European dimension following the signing of the so-called Passenger Name Records (PNR) accords in May 2005, where data on European citizens are transmitted to non-European agencies, within a very weak data protection framework and with little or no possibility of requesting or ensuring accountability.

Data collection on financial assets raises further the essential question of state interference in private life. A system of financial surveillance emerged at the end of the 1980s and initially focused on the laundering of money originating from drug trafficking before being extended to include organized and transnational crime, and most recently to include financing of terrorism. Yet, surveillance and criminal investigation affect the operation of a wide range of businesses beyond the banking community and have spill-over effects on the financial lives of citizens and non-citizens alike. The risks include the use of financial data by police agencies, the use of risk analysis by the financial industry to sort potential customers by risk level, and the suppression of informal financial activities utilized by migrant labour. Such misuse is not devoid of consequences for personal liberty and the right to privacy and can affect individuals’ choices in opening and maintaining bank accounts, transferring money between accounts and across borders, securing a home mortgage, and even in deciding which charity to support. Complex laws and practices for financial surveillance has led financial institutions (such as banks)

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to report suspicions on innocent customers in the name of fighting terrorism or money laundering. The problem is not so much the nature of the information being required, but rather the recent increase in the amount of information requested, its use and the role of the banker transmitting it.

Central and Eastern Europe: Problem of freedom of expression and media

Government interference in some CEE countries is notable mainly for the degree of freedom of the press and of expression. Belarus, for example, was ranked at 124th place out of 139 countries in terms of press freedom by Reporters Without Borders in 2002 and recent incidents continue to show the fragility of media and association freedoms. Similarly, in Moldova, OSCE and the Council of Europe have on several occasions expressed concern about disrespect to political and civil liberties and freedom of the press. While Moldovan legislation provides a relatively constructive environment for the development of civil society, recent legislation and drafts on the media freedom have raised concerns, notably on the independence of journalists. While media freedom is guaranteed by law and the Constitution in Ukraine, the press has come under increasing pressure since 2003. Privatized or newly established media are concentrated in a few hands, and often interlinked with government structures, while independent media are often weak in financial terms. Similarly, in Albania, despite the constitutional guarantee for freedom of the media, and the presence of a large number of newspapers and other media, allegations of government attempts to influence reporting through generally subtle forms of pressure (financial for example), or through systematic recourse to defamation suits, have continued. The latest report from the European Commission on Bosnia and Herzegovina also stressed the need for ensuring respect for the freedom and security of journalists, despite recent improvements. At the same time, BiH journalists have been criticized for inadequate objectivity and for ignoring decisions of the BiH Press Council. In Macedonia, some reform initiatives have been undertaken, such as the creation of a television channel broadcasting programmes in minority languages. Yet problems persist in terms of the legal framework, lack of resources and lack of professionalism, which also hampers progress made in Bulgaria and Romania. Political security Western Europe: The state losing its monopoly of force: private security,

easy availability of guns and (con)fusion of security institutions

Although perhaps distant, there are three kinds of challenge on the horizon that should at least stop us from being too complacent about the European acquis of political security. The first is the rise of the private provision of security,

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accompanied in many cases by a relative or perceived decline in the ability of state institutions to provide adequate public order and security. This can be seen in the dramatic expansion of private security companies, operating across a wide range of sectors in society. Although in itself unproblematic, this development means that, for many, security stops being seen as a public good. When the state does not assume responsibility for providing security for all, then those who can afford to purchase security on the open market live in gated communities or in buildings with security guards, and work in urban areas that are effectively insulated from violence, while the rest of the population fends for itself, living in relative fear and insecurity. Second is the growing challenge to the states’ practical monopoly of the use of force, demonstrated by the easy availability of the instruments of violence – guns (including high-powered or military-style weapons, explosives, and other weapons of terror) in civilian hands. Although this too should not be exaggerated, the bombings in Madrid and London, as well as other forms of violence, can create a climate of fear that exerts significant pressure on political and public debate, and often results in (or can result in) specific challenges to political or civil liberties. Finally, the deterritorialization of threats – exemplified by the ‘war on terror’ – calls into question the neat division between the institutions that states use to combat external threats – armies – and those for public order and domestic security. Security institutions are stretched in both senses, with the military and intelligence institutions expanding into the domestic sphere, with all the potential consequences for human rights and civil liberties, and police functions are expanding outwards, with all the questions this raises about oversight and accountability. Central and Eastern Europe: A different problem, that of consolidation of

‘democracy’, lack of trust in the new institutions and increasing corruption Non-democratic governments were always a source of threat to their citizens in CEE countries, which the onslaught of democracy in the region seems to want to rectify. Bulgaria and Romania, for example, succeeded in establishing democratic societies after a painful transition. In the former Yugoslav republics, however, the situation is different. The democratization process coincided with the desire to consolidate newly independent nation-states. As a consequence, apart from Slovenia, the post-Yugoslav republics became warring states with war economies, preoccupied mainly with questions of statehood and national identity steeped in nationalistic ideologies. It could have been expected that after the partial dismissal of the first generation of former elites, the Western Balkans would embark on a process of democratic consolidation. Nevertheless, the results of elections in Croatia and Serbia in late 2003 once again raised questions about the consolidation of stability in the region. In Croatia, an EU candidate state since June 2004, a nationalist party was returned to power, and in

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Serbia, the Serbian Radical Party continued to exert power in parliament and remained popular after the 2003 elections.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has also failed to pursue a constitutional reform that gives citizens more functional state structures. The Lukashenka regime in Belarus remains an isolated pariah in the region, while even communist governments such as that in Moldova have engaged in reforms. Most opposition forces have been suppressed in Belarus, and a constitutional referendum was held in 2004 to allow the president to run for a third mandate in the 2006 elections. The suppression of social, intellectual, artistic and cultural autonomy saw the consolidation of political control in Belarus, and legitimate space for independent social activity was eliminated when, in 2003–04, sixty-five NGOs were closed down by the authorities and forty-two organizations were forced to self-liquidate.

For many people in the region, in the meantime, income poverty, combined with poor performance of political leaders, whether because of corruption or economic, social and political mismanagement, has sapped citizen confidence in national institutions. Opinion polls show that the church, the army and universities are cited in South-East European countries as the most trusted institutions, while parliaments, governments and courts are among the least.

This mistrust in institutions both feeds into and is fed by corruption, which affects almost all aspects of the social, economic and political life of the CEE countries. At the beginning of the 1990s, infringements to the law and the level of corruption damaged governance performance and the functioning of state institutions. These trends are unfortunately likely to continue despite the active monitoring of the international community (especially the EU). The last report of Freedom House underlines the fact that even in the new EU member states, the democratic progress during the past eight years has been low while the level of corruption remains high. Evidence shows that generalized corruption undermines the business climate, discourages domestic and foreign investment, constitutes a waste of economic resources, hampers economic growth and directly or indirectly violates human rights, damages the stability of democratic institutions and undermines the trust and confidence of citizens in the fairness of public administration. While in well-established democracies corruption remains mainly a deviation from the norm, an accident in the functioning of various public institutions, in the CEE where the norm is not clearly defined, corruption makes the norm, it is systemic because it shapes the system itself. As tax evasion, bribery and the looting of public assets by network-based oligarchic structures have not only led to illegitimate fortunes, but also to a sense of powerlessness and social atomization, corruption has transformed itself into an intrinsic prominent soft security risk factor. In most CEE countries, state institutions whose task is to fight corruption, such as the police, the financial

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police, customs and judicial authorities and state attorney’s office, are not only weak and inefficient but are often themselves involved, to various degrees, in mafia-like functions by securing logistic support and legal protection for their protagonists.

In countries such as Albania, Croatia and Macedonia there is a widespread perception that the bulk of the judicial system is corrupt. In Bulgaria, corruption and organized crime have been major political concerns for much of the past decade, yet entrenched interests have consistently opposed effective anti-corruption policies. Civil society organizations have played, and continue to play, an active role in putting corruption high on the political agenda, which prompted the Bulgarian Government to approve a National Anti-Corruption Strategy in 2001 based on combined strategies of repression, prevention and involvement of civil society. Corruption as a symptom of a deeper malaise also plagues Romania, where public perceptions that corruption is routine prove as damaging as actual corrupt practices. According to a poll by the Open Society Foundation, members of parliament in Romania are perceived as the most corrupt class of officials (58% of persons interviewed considered that ‘almost all MPs’ or ‘a large number’ were corrupt), followed by police, doctors, judges, business people, ministry officials, prosecutors, lawyers, mayors, local councillors and local civil servants. Opinion polls conducted in the region show the perception that there are categories of citizens that stand above the law, such as politicians, the rich, and people with the right connections (a perception most noted in Ukraine, followed by Bulgaria, but considerably lower in the Czech Republic). The payment of bribes was also noted as a concern, especially by the poor and especially for services in hospitals. Those unable to pay such bribes are deprived of minimum health assistance or other benefits to which they are entitled by law. Desperate measures and transnational human security tragedies

Migration and displacement: a human security predicament in both destination countries and countries of origin In 2003 (the latest year for which data are available in most countries), there were about 23.5 million foreign nationals residing in Western Europe, representing about 5.5% of the total population. The foreign population is spread unevenly – in 2003 about 31% lived in Germany, 14% in France, 12% in the UK and 9% in Italy. Trends in migrant stocks have been fairly stable: only Germany and Ireland have experienced a modest reduction in recent years. In Italy and Spain in particular, but also in Austria and the UK, there have been significant rises. It is also estimated that Germany lost about half a million people due to emigration in 2003 and the UK about 170,000. The combination of inflows and outflows resulted in a net gain of about 950,000 in Western Europe in 2003, and

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the largest national gain was some 380,000 in Italy, mainly as a result of regularization. The UK was in second place with a net gain of almost quarter of a million. New migration patterns have emerged. There were an estimated 63,000 Chinese migrants in Germany in 2001, double the figure of 1993 and ten times that of 1988. Various sources estimate that between 400,000 and 800,000 people enter Western Europe illegally each year, mostly labour migrants, although there are significant difficulties in estimating their exact number on either a national or aggregate basis. Germany received by far the largest number of labour migrants in 2003, amounting to over half a million. There has been a steady decline in the number of asylum applications in Western Europe, totalling around 325,000 in 2003 compared with 420,000 in 2000, with the UK, Germany and France leading the list for asylum applications in 2003. Around 300,000 asylum seekers still arrive in the region each year.

Insecurity however is rampant for people on the move to Western Europe: It has been estimated that up to 2,000 migrants die each year trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to enter Europe illegally. Many irregular migrants who have survived their journey are nevertheless subject to vulnerability, particularly for victims of migrant smuggling and human trafficking. The means of transport used by migrant smugglers are often unsafe, and migrants often may find themselves abandoned by their smuggler and unable to complete the journey they have paid for, or raped or abused during their journey. They also face insecurities in transit countries. Insecurity also often continues for migrants in destination societies in Western Europe: They and their families are generally excluded from health, education and other social welfare provisions, and they can be subject to exploitation in the housing market. The majority of migrant domestic workers and migrants employed in the sex industry are women who are at particular risk of abuse and who face specific health-related risks, including exposure to HIV/AIDS. Migrants with irregular status are often unwilling to seek redress from authorities because they fear arrest and deportation. As a result, they do not always make use of public services to which they are entitled, for example emergency health care. In most Western European countries, they are also barred from using the full range of services available to citizens and migrants with regular status. In such situations, already hard-pressed NGOs, religious bodies and other civil society institutions are obliged to provide assistance to migrants with irregular status. Across the region unemployment is particularly high among certain migrant groups, while xenophobia, racism and discrimination appear to be increasing, particularly targeted at migrants from Islamic countries.

A category that has attracted particular attention in recent years has been irregular migrants and asylum seekers who are detained, a practice now widespread across Western Europe. One area of concern for commentators is the length of time people are detained. In the UK there is currently no time limit, in

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France it is thirty-two days, in Italy sixty days and in Germany six months. Other common concerns are that people who have not actually committed a crime are nevertheless deprived of their liberty, without charges being pressed, without trial, without a right to an automatic bail hearing, often without adequate legal representation, and without being informed of their rights. Another policy that has been suggested to sometimes undermine the human security of migrants is the deportation of irregular migrants and unsuccessful asylum seekers. Sometimes the act of deportation is inhumane and degrading – people being deported from Germany and Finland in recent years have been sedated, and deportees in the UK are regularly handcuffed. In addition, there are occasional reports of deportees being arrested, imprisoned and even tortured and killed after being returned to their country of origin. What is more, irregular migrants are often imputed with the worst of intentions without any substantiation. Two particularly frequent assumptions are that they participate in illegal activities and that they are associated with the spread of infectious diseases, especially HIV/AIDS. Both these assumptions are gross generalizations. Some irregular migrants are criminals and some carry infectious diseases; but most do not. Misrepresenting the evidence criminalizes and demonizes all irregular migrants. It can encourage them to remain underground, and diverts attention from those who actually are criminals and should be prosecuted, and those who are sick and should be treated. At the same time, the potentially positive implications of international migration for destination states and societies in Western Europe are often underestimated. There is extensive academic literature that demonstrates that immigration has contributed towards economic growth across the region ever since the Second World War. Immigration may be one element of a wider solution to the so-called demographic crisis in several Western European countries. Although difficult to quantify, most commentators would agree that immigration has enriched societies and cultures. This places emphasis on the importance of a legal and normative framework for protecting the rights and security of all migrants. While such a framework exists for asylum seekers and refugees, it does not yet for other migrants.

In the ‘other Europe’, the desperate move has often been caused not only by economic insecurity but by war. Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are among the most tragic victims of the violent dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. The 1992–95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina resulted in the displacement of around half the country’s population, and left up to 230,000 people dead or missing. Over half a million Croatian citizens were driven out of their homes. In 2004 there were 10,000 displaced people in Croatia and 39,000 in BiH. Of the 2.2 million individuals who were displaced by the war during the early 1990s, more than 1 million have since ‘returned’ to BiH. However, most of

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these displaced persons have not returned to their pre-war communities and residences and therefore continue to feel like IDPs. Organized crime

Trafficking in human beings, along with the other associated activities of organized crime, especially money laundering, has reached a high level in Central and Eastern Europe, with major implications for all levels of society, in every state in the region and in neighbouring countries in the ‘other’ Europe. Organized crime is often cited as one of the central causes of instability in the region. Unemployment (particularly youth unemployment), poor quality education and inter-generational tensions and divisions are contributing factors to the increase in organized crime, driving many young people into crime. While dealing with the underlying root factors of organized crime is essential, it is also important to address the logistical questions of how to deal with organized crime in the present. While data sharing on criminal networks seems essential, this kind of information sharing may in fact risk undermining police efforts, given that it may ultimately feed back to those involved in criminal activity. Trafficking in human beings

At any given time, approximately 2.5 million men, women and children are victims of trafficking. Trafficking in human beings is one of the most notorious faces of organized crime and represents both a critical challenge in the areas of human security and law enforcement and a serious transnational threat to security. Estimations of the scope of this phenomenon at national, regional and global levels are open to debate – in part due to the complexity of the phenomenon of human trafficking, in part due to disputes over the differences between trafficking and smuggling. The Balkans have become the gateway to Europe for organized criminals. It is estimated that, until 2003, Balkan criminal networks were responsible for the trafficking of 200,000 to 700,000 persons worldwide, mainly for forced prostitution.

The most common causes of human trafficking in the CEE are considered to be both pull factors, such as an open border and a developed ‘black market’, and push factors, such as wars and frozen conflicts of the past and present. In terms of citizenship of traffickers, where data were available to the SECI (South-East Europe Co-operation Initiative) Center which conducted a survey, they were mainly Romanian (1,013), Turkish (199), Greek (101), Bulgarian (89), Albanian (50), with a small number from Serbia and Montenegro (10), Bosnia and Herzegovina (8) and Croatians (6), and figures not available for Moldova. As for modes of operation, victims are either recruited by the promise of jobs or marriage arrangements. Trafficking takes place through normal transportation channels, but often with forged documents. Only Croatia reported cases of

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hidden means of transport. The main organizers of international smuggling schemes usually manage a network of recruitment partners in small towns and rural areas from origin countries. Reportedly, the sum paid varies with the distance and may amount up to US$15,000 for a person being smuggled from Bangladesh or India to Western European countries. The price for smuggling persons from South-Eastern Europe to Western Europe varies between €300 (Belgrade–Zagreb or Ljubljana–Italy) to €3,000 (from Albania to Western Europe) or €5,000–€8,000 (Turkey to EU countries/UK). Pakistani, Iraqi, Iranian, Syrian and Turkish migrants have continued to choose Bosnia and Herzegovina as a transit country to Western Europe. Moldova and Turkey reported the highest number of illegal migrants detected on their national territories during the first six months of 2005. Even though a part of the smuggling routes moved from Turkey to Caucasus and Ukraine, this new route is redirecting illegal migrants to the region through Moldova. Light arms ownership and trafficking

The trafficking of light arms is another factor that has contributed to the increase of social violence in the region. Central and Eastern Europe is one of the regions where most light arms are in circulation, mainly as illegal weapons from the wars in former Yugoslavia and the huge production of arms in the Moldovan separatist region of Transnistria. The last report of the South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons shows that gun ownership rates and gun homicide rates are tenuous. There are obviously many factors affecting gun homicide rates, including the stability of the region, the availability of guns either through the legal process or illegal acquisition, and levels of criminal activity.

Homicide rates and gun homicide rates tend to increase prior to, during and after conflicts or periods of instability. This has occurred in Albania and Macedonia, and is likely to be the case for the other countries of former Yugoslavia. Figures for 2006 show that the share of gun homicides in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia is far higher than the European average (25%–30%) and closer to those found in the United States (58%), which is considered to have a ‘gun culture’. Gun homicide rates in Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro were at least 70% of the total number of homicides, while in Moldova the rate was only 6%. In Germany, gun homicides are 30% of total homicides even though 30% of the population owns a gun, compared with 7.47% in Albania and 19.38% in Montenegro. It is estimated that 200,000 guns which were stolen in Albania, have not been accounted for and presumably are available for illegal use. Contract killings have also increased in the region, mainly relating to mafia wars over smuggling channels and drug distribution territories. Evidence suggests that criminals in the former Yugoslavia and Albania are well armed and frequently carry and use guns. Guns appear to be

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part of the identity of young offenders, who use their gun-carrying status and the threat they might use them to create a sense of power and to instil fear in others. Finally, the ultimate human security threat: unresolved wars

Democratization, Europeanization and market economic success aside, it is notable that people in Eastern Europe are not completely immune to the most important human insecurity of all: the threat of war and of border disputes. Indeed the region is made up of barely functional union-states (Bosnia and Herzegovina), protectorates (BiH and Kosovo), and fragile, ethnically divided states (TFYR Macedonia). In the eastern part, the unresolved 1992 Transnistria conflict has added to this downward spiral, and the revival of the Kosovar conflict in 2001 with attacks on Macedonia raised concerns for the potential latent conflicts that may spill over in the region. Surveys among Macedonians showed that 50% of respondents still feared wars.

Probably the area at greatest risk of military aggression is Transnistria. The conflict between the separatist self-declared ‘state’ of Transnistria and the legally recognized Republic of Moldova remains unresolved. Settlement of this conflict is difficult, because it is intra-state but has an inter-state dimension, opposing a legally recognized state to an unrecognized self-declared ‘state’. Yet the conflict poses challenges to the EU as Transnistria is positioned to act both as a source and a transit point for the smuggling of illegal goods, including persons and arms, towards Europe. Transnistria has become a heavily militarized self-proclaimed ‘state’ that has contributed to the militarization of the region around it.

Even though human beings are the focus of attention, the states that can provide for their human security cannot be left without protection from the risk of disintegration. Thus, despite growing attention from the international community, the main outstanding risks in terms of physical and personal security for people in the region remain the unresolved legal status of Kosovo, the unresolved frozen conflict in Transnistria, and the weaknesses of BiH and Macedonia as functional states.

Priorities for action The concept of human security must also be applied to industrialized societies The increased insistence on revising national and regional ‘security’ strategies to include elements of human security comes from the consensus, since September 11, on the interdependence of threats, and from that, the oft-repeated mantra that the threat to national security in mostly rich countries emanates from failed and weak states.

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This approach is also seen in the EU through the proposals of the report A Human Security Doctrine for Europe, which was prepared by the London School of Economics and Political Science Study Group for Javier Solana, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in September 2004. The report discussed the ‘black holes’ generating many of the sources of insecurity that impact directly on the security of citizens of the European Union. Yet instead of studying the question of human security and insecurity in Europe, the doctrine took as its point of departure the premise that the security of Europeans is associated with the insecurity of non-Europeans. It thus inscribed its proposed human security doctrine directly in the field of European external affairs. The answer proposed in the report for a ‘self-interested’ moral duty would be to intervene ‘intelligently’ in other parts of the world, using civil-military special forces, engaged not only to exert military and police control, but also to (re-)build comprehensive political institutions. The Study Group thus recommended the creation of a Human Security Response Force of about 15,000, composed of both military and civilian specialists. The problem with this approach is two-pronged: first, military means were seen as the answer to poverty as a threat, and threats were seen as emanating from the ‘other’. Such ethical arguments and the use of the term ‘human security’ were, above all, meant to gain the support of the international community and of the European public for civil-military interventions. The second approach in the EU view of human security is the developmental aspect and the role of Europe in decreasing insecurities elsewhere. In 2004, Dóchas, an association that represents the interests of Irish non-governmental development organizations, published the report Human Security – Placing Development at the Heart of the EU’s External Relations for the Irish Presidency of the EU. Although also focusing exclusively on Europe’s foreign policy, this report tackled trade, aid, economic assistance and development cooperation without concentrating on the military – or use of force – as a primary means of European foreign policy. Instead it proposed revisiting European trade policy as a political move to define EU foreign policy. The report claimed: ‘As the stronger partner in trade, the EU has a particular responsibility to take into account the human security impact of its policies. Trade policy should consider the (limited) capabilities of Europe’s partners. And with a human security perspective, EU agricultural policy will have to take into account the right to income in developing countries’.45 International trade rules were therefore as important a tool, if not more important, than any army or civilian force that the EU could send abroad.

45 Dóchas, 2004. Human Security – Placing Development at the Heart of the EU’s External Relations, Dublin, Irish Association of Non-Governmental Development Organisations.

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In the same way, a number of industrialized countries – Canada, Japan and to some extent Norway – have taken up human security as their foreign policy concepts. Yet, the question arises as to how can a people-centred approach to security be promoted by a state as a foreign policy without becoming an interest-based agenda used as a vehicle for furthering national power, demonstrating a government’s interest in the well-being of people of other states, rather than its own? At the end of the day, why should human security be adopted as a foreign policy tool, good enough for people in ‘other’ countries, rather than a domestic strategy for a goal towards achieving societies where everyone feels protected, secure and empowered enough to take destiny in their own hands? The point is therefore for industrialized countries in Europe and elsewhere not only to adopt an ethical foreign policy, but to use human security as a domestic organizational concept.

Where one might argue that human security is a concept minted for application to the developing world, this report responds that, having vanquished the basic challenges of physical survival, the European system of public welfare must now turn to adequately addressing the growing human insecurity of Western Europeans. It is a crucial reminder that a certain version of democracy, of equality, of diversity is not yet attained in both Europes. In a number of developing regions of the world, these values are not yet institutionalized because of economic conditions, environmental crisis or armed conflict. In Western Europe they represent the expected baseline.

Thus, this new approach to security must no longer only be considered as a foreign policy tool. It must also become a (truly) European question, adequately focused on the region’s inhabitants. The mask of stability should not hide the fact that there are millions of people, and not of foreign origin only, who are currently living in Western Europe under very dire human security conditions. The stability that seems so firmly anchored in Western Europe is one that could be shaken to its foundations in the face of any number of environmental or heath security threats. The fragility of this stability in the face of an avian flu epidemic, for example, is a major area of vulnerability for the region. Some sector-specific areas for action

Economic security. One must not only open up social complexities to interdisciplinary analysis, but ensure that political decision-making takes into account the interdependencies of human insecurity. As might be expected, insecurity in one domain feeds insecurity in others. The most general set of causal links stems from socio-economic insecurity, which spreads vulnerability and precariousness to all aspects of life, from health, to liberty, to political voice. Insecurities that originate in socio-economic vulnerability are already the object of social policy in individual member states and in EU social policy at

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large. Social and economic policy contributes to human security and insecurity, yet cannot exhaustively assure it (or fail it).

The recent urban violence in the suburbs around Paris shows a direct link between poverty and security and the failures of social policy. Youth unemployment, living in disadvantaged communities, being the second or third generation of immigrants and experiencing socio-economic inequalities, have all contributed to a general feeling of alienation on the part of many youth in these areas. While this feeling of alienation is currently more based on socio-economic exclusion than on identity issues, this could change and enter into the dangerous realm of identity politics and the problems associated with that, such as crime and terrorism.

During the past ten years there have been several significant developments in the region in terms of promotion of human security through economic policies, especially in the light of EU accession and the constant monitoring and support of international organizations. In some countries the social condition improved on the way towards the Euro-Atlantic integration while in others it did not. National governments and international donor organizations should use past experiences, particularly from Central Europe, in order to help the Western Balkan countries and the new eastern neighbours of the EU to cope with economic insecurities. Supporting business promotion by encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises, by counselling and training or by micro-credit schemes would help those countries to attract further investors and to revitalize their economies. Financing the welfare state is a major challenge facing all European countries and in particular in a post-communist environment where state capacity has been significantly and rapidly eroded. One possibility that can be suggested is for new member states to receive additional financial resources, perhaps from a human security fund, if they were to actively promote a human security agenda.

Health security. Health security cannot simply be improved by improving health, though clearly good health makes one more resilient to unseen threats to health. Many such threats are again inseparable from processes of environmental change, socio-economics and processes of globalization. In terms of policy, health-related vulnerabilities must be confronted on all levels, personal, national, European and global. The politics of socio-economics is the starting point. From city to region to country, access to health services varies. Such access is the direct consequence of policy decisions and should be improved considerably within the EU. On the threat side of health security, a new spate of illnesses occupies the consciousness of Europeans (Europeans are in fact more preoccupied with the security of their food than with any other type of security issue). Food-borne illness, the unknowns of genetic modification and avian influenza, contribute to both a sense of vulnerability and to a factual

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vulnerability. Moreover, the explosive spread of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa again links health security to questions of migration. Approaches to these global and regional threats require global coordination, at all levels. For questions of large-scale pollution, international cooperation is the only possible route. At the local level, coordination is needed in order to assure adequately clean water supplies and for concerns relating to agricultural production and food processing.

In terms of empowerment and protection against HIV/AIDS and TB, a number of recommendations can be made. While a number of strategies have contributed to the reduction of HIV/AIDS transmission rates for particular risk groups in Western Europe, such as in the cases of blood transfusions, mother-to-child transmissions and harm-reduction interventions for injecting drug users, the most effective technology for preventing sexual transmission remains the male condom, which has perpetuated gender inequality in the control of HIV prevention. There is a need for further investment in research and development. Other key components of control and prevention of both HIV/AIDS and TB remain early diagnosis and treatment, surveillance, and monitoring of high-risk groups. Reinvigorated information dissemination and prevention campaigns, particularly among high-risk communities, are also significant tools for empowerment. Political commitment, awareness-raising and education strategies involving community organizations and other societal actors remain important components in this context. Efforts should continue to be made to ensure free access to diagnostic and treatment services for all segments of the population.

In anticipating and preventing threats to health posed by food-borne illnesses, a number of recommendations can be made. The WHO argues that policies need to be multisectoral in nature, spanning the areas of transport, planning and food control, and distribution, and integrated at communal, national and regional levels. In this regard, the international standards set by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in terms of the development of a risk analysis framework, the surveillance of food-borne diseases and the provision of technical assistance are useful. Efforts should continue to be made across Europe to harmonize national policies in accordance with the Codex Alimentarius and WHO standards. This includes strengthening and coordinating surveillance systems and disseminating information. Empowerment can also be achieved by focusing more attention on the socio-economic aspects of food security and identifying strategies to reduce the burden of food-borne illness on low-income households.

Currently, the most important measures for controlling the spread of avian flu remain the rapid culling and disposal of infected and exposed birds. Quarantining of infected farms is also significant, as is restricting the movement of poultry. In terms of monitoring and anticipation, the EU has acknowledged the importance of addressing the issue at regional level and has called for the

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coordination of national pandemic influenza plans, joint evaluation exercises and surveillance and laboratory networking throughout the region. Emphasis has also been placed on the value of coordinating with relevant international and intergovernmental organizations and collaborating closely with veterinary and public health authorities in member states. A prohibition has also been placed on the import of risky poultry products. National pandemic preparedness plans are currently being developed throughout Western European countries, but they vary in terms of stage of development. In the meantime almost all countries have functional surveillance systems and vaccination programmes for groups at risk.

For the CEE region, improving health security will mean increasing budgetary allocation to the health sector in order to increase universal access to health facilities, increasing public awareness about HIV/AIDS infections and their way of transmissions, and support to NGOs dealing with such issues. The Ukrainian health system deserves more attention as smoking and alcohol-related diseases and the levels of HIV/AIDS have increased, reaching 1% of the adult population, the highest in Europe.

Human rights, including minorities and migrants’ rights, cultural liberties. Political liberty of the kind assured in the tradition of the liberal state is presented as a trade-off against security in Western Europe. The equation is simple: in order to be secure, society must sacrifice a certain number of political and personal liberties assured by the liberal state. This calculation of security touches the human security of individuals and therefore needs to be addressed with a critical eye. Some dangers are real, and some liberties do provide fertile ground for their exploitation. However, the notion of possibility, as we know, is the product of those who know how to evaluate threat. More than any other field in our time, the science of threat is politicized. Thus human insecurity in the domain of personal and political liberty is in reality forcefully modulated by politics.

Foreign migrants are said to represent a threat, real or imagined, to the cultural traditions that individuals experience as their own. In this case, the notion of cultural identity becomes central. Most individuals find a certain kind of security in the identity they hold in a cultural and social setting. That identity is conceived as unchanging and for the most part heterogeneous. While the notion of unchanging cultural homogeneity is demonstrably imaginary, the prospect of change or hybrid culture is unsettling, even destabilizing for many. Cultural identity in its affirming and negative modes thus becomes a central concern for the feelings of security of individuals. The response to the cultural threat is knowledge, awareness of culture, awareness of oneself in that culture. With regard to seasonal migrant workers, steps should be taken to ensure that they are covered by measures focused on improving the rights of migrants in Europe, such as those measures provided through the European social charter.

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For the protection of minorities and human rights in the CEE, national, regional and international legislation dealing with personal security and community security is now in place and most South East European countries have come under the scrutiny of the international community concerning respect for human rights and national minorities. Nevertheless the main challenge for the region will be the development of a politics of tolerance, which recent history has proved cannot be achieved in a short period of time.

Respect for political liberties and the freedom of the media is closely supervised and evaluated by the international community, including efforts under the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe and regional initiatives on media reforms launched by the European Commission, in cooperation with the Council of Europe. Monitoring is also carried out by OSCE in the areas of freedom of assembly and association, the right to liberty and to a fair trial, and in the use of the death penalty. These efforts should be continued, and dialogues should be opened with national governments through NGOs and through legal means.

In Central and Eastern Europe, promoting the respect for the rule of law and supporting the fight against corruption should be the aim of both national governments and international organizations. The EU could apply the same conditionality for aid as for Romania and Bulgaria to the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe and encourage NGOs in the region to continue the fight against corruption and promote the development of free and independent media, while pressuring non-liberal governments to make a place for civil society.

Protecting the environment for human security. Given the interlinkages between the various factors contributing to environmental insecurity across time and space, an ecological approach to the development of policy necessitates integrated strategies that span not only sectors, but also levels of governance. In this regard, the European Union has pursued two strategies for environmental security: (a) integrating environmental goals into all sectoral policies (Cardiff process), including development, foreign and security policies; and (b) stressing conflict prevention and management in its activities in international organizations (UN, OSCE) and for specific regions. Involving civil society organizations in policy-making should be recognized as important components of such strategies.

Equally important is the acknowledgement of Europe’s own role in the production and perpetuation of environmental insecurity on a local and global scale. In this vein, the European Commission has called for the need to recognize shared but differentiated responsibilities for global environmental threats, so that the EU acknowledges the ‘ecological footprint’ generated by disproportionate consumption, and has identified a number of principles that should be set out in EU policy. These include the need to change consumption patterns in the region, the need to pursue cooperative approaches to

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environmental security internationally, and the need to emphasize preventative approaches to environmental management based on the precautionary principle. Furthermore, the European Environment Agency has identified three interlinked strategies aimed at furthering environmental and economic progress in Europe:

… stronger and more coherent environmental policy integration, particularly through institutional and financial reform; the internalization of the real costs of our use of the natural world into market prices which will contribute to the more efficient use of renewable resources, energy and materials; and the more efficient use of renewable and non-renewable resources via measures that stimulate eco-innovation.

This entails ensuring continued support for eco-friendly research and development. In addition, information dissemination and public awareness campaigns aimed at encouraging the more sustainable use of the environment should continue to be pursued. Increased and continued collaboration at international level by means of supporting such initiatives as the Kyoto Protocol should also remain a priority. For the countries of the CEE, market-based and environmental management reforms have led to significant environmental quality improvements in advanced-reform countries of Central Europe. The EU-8 have considerably improved the quality of legislation, water management and other environment-related problems (industrial pollution, nuclear safety and radiation protection, etc.) on their way to the EU, and generally speaking almost all CEE countries have ratified the most important international environmental treaties. Nevertheless, in the acceding countries (Bulgaria and Romania), the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine) further steps are required in order to achieve a safe and healthy environment. Industrial pollution remains one of the major environmental problems for most of the South-East European countries. In the meantime, even if several legislative frameworks at the state and regional level are in place, environmental protection is still not perceived as being a priority for most of the individuals in CEE countries. This represents another legacy of the communist regimes, which paid little attention to the environment in general. Regional approaches to regional threats: curbing organized crime, including human trafficking Any set of recommendations that hopes to successfully address these multiple transnational insecurities must involve both the public and private sectors and must be implemented at multiple levels of governance, from local to regional levels. The strategy must include the victims, the supply side (traffickers) as well as the demand side (sex buyers). Regional and international bodies must also better coordinate their efforts, including information exchange. Legislative reform at European and national levels needs to take place, notably with regard

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to the harmonization of legal frameworks, penal codes and judicial procedures. Resource allocation is also necessary to train law enforcement personnel and to restructure law enforcement agencies. Finally, the mass media should be involved in public awareness campaigns and the state should also ensure that transparency and accountability mechanisms are respected, and that safeguards for civil rights and democracy are implemented. At the same time, there is a need for information exchange and data-sharing between states and the international and regional agencies working to combat organized crime. Furthermore there is a need for legislative reform (EU, national level) to allow effective harmonization of legal frameworks, penal codes and judicial procedures. The existing regional framework (BSEC, EU, OSCE, SECI) needs to institutionalize multilateral cooperation in the field.

Role of international organizations Since 1999 (the date that coincides with the creation of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe) the international community has made some strategic choices and actions that have made a considerable contribution to improving the quality of human security in the region. First, at the international level, NATO remained the provider of ‘hard security’ in the region. The 2004 enlargement of the Alliance to the East is likely to provide stability. Second, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have assumed new forms of involvement that enhance political stability and promote economic growth in the region. Third, at the regional level, the EU has invested more political and financial resources by integrating in its structures eight former communist states, by its involvement in crisis management and post-conflict reconstruction in the Balkans and through the new European Neighbourhood Policy launched in March 2003. The EU has also assumed more responsibilities inside the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, continuing to be the largest donor and the leader of the process, with the OSCE as an umbrella organization. The Stability Pact achievements in the region during recent years are numerous and they all have a direct link to human security protection. The OSCE has continued to conduct a wide range of activities in SEE countries relating to all three dimensions of security – human, politico/military and economic/environmental. Other existing regional cooperation mechanisms, including the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), have contributed to the stabilization and democratization of the region.

Although the influence of external actors in the process of democratization could be considered as a ‘state-centred action’ the international dimension of development and consolidation of democracy could have a positive impact on the evolution of the state of human security. In this respect international intervention could also be seen as ‘individual-centred’. The promotion of human security increasingly needs to involve coordination between external actors and national states, and between states and their citizens.

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First, international organizations could help states that are resource-poor and unable to guarantee the minimum economic resources or health facilities for their citizens by providing them with technical, financial or advisory support. Second, international organizations could give legal, political or administrative advice to states that are not complying with their obligations concerning human and political rights and the freedom of their citizens. A third role lies in active support or promotion of the rule of law and good governance. International organizations can actively promote respect for the rule of law and help states to fight corruption and organized crime by providing advice, by analysing and making known problems or by encouraging and supporting important actors within governments but also within societies. These three roles of international organizations represent support for the implementation of national policies that improve the situation of individuals. A further role is meant to monitor the implementation of these organizations’ own policies and programmes to guarantee that states do not pick and choose only the policies and norms that benefit a certain political group or group of individuals, or that they do not implement programmes monitored only selectively by international actors. Finally, promoting human security through peace: stabilization of Southern and Eastern Europe Regional cooperation is especially needed in order to prevent and solve the existing conflicts in the region. This could involve both the previous experiences of the regional and international organizations (EU, OSCE, NATO) and the expertise of think tanks in the region. Two groups of countries remain sensitive and further international attention is required.

First, the Western Balkans, particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. The EU agenda for the Western Balkans is already overloaded and one should ask if it is ready to continue to remain closely engaged, monitor developments in the region and exploit the instrument of conditionality and especially to act promptly and without hesitation. The conduct and outcome of the referendum in Montenegro were successes for the EU. International recognition of the new state by international organizations has gone slowly and smoothly. The EU will now need to establish the new Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), mandate and restart negotiations as soon as possible. The current atmosphere in Serbia is still worrying. The suspension of SAA negotiations, the stagnation of cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the departure of Montenegro, and anticipation of the inevitable resolution of the Kosovo issue have caused enormous apathy and pessimism among the Serbian public. The democratic forces are disoriented and the non-governmental sector appears to be non-existent. Political analysts have already affirmed that the EU should think of a comprehensive approach to Serbia that could help its people

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overcome a difficult moment. This does not just mean financial but also political commitments, such as ‘a friendly mediation’ that could facilitate a ‘road map’ for the near future. Another problem will be to reach a viable solution for Kosovo, including helping the economy and the socio-economic well-being of the divided populations, while resolving the status of the state after the departure of UNMIK.

A second group of countries that faces all types of human security threats is the EU’s new eastern neighbours, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. The international community should consider exercising constant public pressure on the Belarus Government in defence of freedoms while continuing to provide avenues of dialogue and exchanges, especially for students and future generations. As for Moldova and Ukraine, the implementation of the EU Action Plans in both countries are likely to improve different sectors of human security. Nevertheless, Moldova requires special attention because of the unresolved conflict in Transnistria. Several field studies realized by European think tanks in Warsaw, Bucharest and Chisinau urge the international community to become more involved in the conflict settlement in Transnistria. In this respect, the EU should consider new approaches to demilitarizing the conflict area, maintaining peace and playing a more proactive role in peacebuilding, including strengthening the EU role in the negotiation process.

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APPENDICES

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Association of Southeast Asian Nations

ASEAN – UNESCO CONCEPT WORKSHOP ON HUMAN SECURITY IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA

Gran Mahakam Hotel, Jakarta, Indonesia

25–27 October 2006

AGENDA 25 October 2006 (Wednesday) 18.00–19.00

Registration Venue: Level 6, Gran Mahakam Hotel

19.00–21.00

Welcome reception hosted by the ASEAN Secretariat Venue: poolside, Level 6, Gran Mahakam Hotel Dress: smart casual / long-sleeved batik

26 October 2006 (Thursday)

08.30–09.00 Registration Venue: foyer of Magnolia Ballroom, Level 2, Gran Mahakam Hotel

09.00–09.20

Opening Venue: Magnolia Ballroom Welcome remarks by H.E. Ong Keng Yong, Secretary-General of ASEAN Welcome remarks by Mr Pierre Sané, Assistant Director-General, Social and Human Sciences Sector (ADG/SHS), UNESCO

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09.20–09.40

Mr Pierre Sané – An overview of UNESCO’s approach to human security

09.40–10.00

Refreshment break and photo taking All sessions to be co-chaired by H.E. Ong Keng Yong, Secretary-General of ASEAN, and by Mr Pierre Sané, Assistant Director-General, Social and Human Sciences Sector, UNESCO

10.00–11.00

Reports by international experts on Priorities for Human Security in the various regions/subregions of the world – policy and action for regional bodies • Mr Francisco Rojas Aravena, Secretary-General, FLACSO, Costa Rica (Latin America and the Caribbean) • Mr Jakkie Cilliers, Executive Director, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa (Africa) • Mr Bechir Chourou, University of Carthage, Tunisia (Arab States) • Ms Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, Director, Center for Peace and Human Security, France (Europe)

11.00–12.00 Discussion

12.00–14.00

Lunch and break Venue: dining hall, Gran Mahakam Hotel

14.00–14.30

Reports by international experts on Priorities for Human Security in the various regions/subregions of the world – policy and action for regional bodies (continued) • Ms Anara Tabyshalieva, Director, Kyrgyz Peace Research Center, Kyrgyz Republic (Central Asia) • Mr Guan Xin Ping, Dean, Department of Social Work and Social Policy, Nankai University, China (North-East Asia)

14.30–15.00

15.00–16.30

Discussion Presentations Mr Amitav Acharya, Deputy Director and Head of Research, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore – Presentation on ‘Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in South-East Asia’ H.E. Mr Surin Pitsuwan, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Member of Parliament, Thailand ASEAN’s view on Human Security

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The work of the Commission on Human Security and future challenges: what is shaping the international agenda

16.30–16.45 16.45–19.00 19.30–21.00

Refreshment break Discussion Dinner hosted by UNESCO Venue: Koi Restaurant and Gallery (Jl. Mahakam I/2, Jakarta – Tel +62 21 722 2864 / Fax +62 21 723 6428)

27 October 2006 (Friday)

08.30–11.00 Brainstorming for next steps, regional priorities, and planning for the future

11.00–11.15

Refreshment break

11.15–12.45

Wrap-up discussion and recommendations

12.45–13.00

Concluding remarks by Mr Pierre Sané, Assistant Director-General, Social and Human Sciences Sector, UNESCO, by H.E. Mr Ong Keng Yong, Secretary-General of ASEAN

13.00–14.00

Lunch

Afternoon

Free – Departures

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United Nations Educational, Scientific Association of Southeast and Cultural Organization Asian Nations

ASEAN – UNESCO CONCEPT WORKSHOP ON HUMAN SECURITY IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA

Gran Mahakam Hotel, Jakarta, Indonesia 25–27 October 2006

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS ASEAN MEMBER COUNTRIES Brunei Darussalam Ms Florence Chong

First Secretary Department of International Organizations Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade International Convention Center Jalan Pulaie Berakas Bandar Seri Begawan BB 3910 Brunei Darussalam Tel: +673 2 383 120 Fax: +673 2 383 167 E-mail: florence.chong@mfa.gov.bn

Ms Sharifah Salmah binti Dato Syed Hussein Alkaff Senior Assistant Commissioner Royal Brunei Police Force Police Headquarters Jalan Gadong

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Bandar Seri Begawan Brunei Darussalam Tel: +673 245 9500 Fax: +673 2422911 E-mail: sharifah.hussein@police.gov.bn

Ms Pushpathavi Thambipillai Senior Lecturer Department of Public Policy University of Brunei Darussalam Tungku Lente Rd. BE 1419 Bandar Seri Begawan Brunei Darussalam Tel: +673 246 3001 ext. 1123 Fax: +673 246 3017 E-mail: pushpa@fbeps.ubd.edu.bn

Cambodia Mr Iv Heang

Counsellor Royal Embassy of Cambodia Jl. T. B. Simatupang Kav. 13 Jakarta Selatan 12520 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7884 2018 Fax: +62 21 781 2524 E-mail: iv.heang@indo.net.id

Mr Seng Sovirak Researcher Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP) Phnom Paung Peay Sangkat Phnom Penh Thmey Khan Russey Keo Phnom Penh PO Box 1007, Phnom Penh Cambodia Tel: +855 23 982 559 Fax: +855 23 982 559 E-mail: sengsovirakk@yahoo.com

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Indonesia Mr Enny Soeprapto

Commissioner, Civil and Political Rights Human Rights National Commission Jl. Latuharhary 4B Menteng Jakarta Pusat 10310 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 392 5230 Fax: +62 21 392 5227 E-mail: info@komnasham.go.id

Mr Arief Rachman Executive Chairman Indonesian National Commission for UNESCO Ministry of Education and Culture Gedung C., Lt 17 Jalan Jenderal Sudiram – Senayan Jakarta 10270 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 573 31 27 Fax : +62 21 573 31 27 E-mail: aspnetind@cbn.net.id

Ms Hasnah Gasim

Indonesian National Commission for UNESCO Ministry of Education and Culture Gedung C. , Lt 17 Jalan Jenderal Sudiram – Senayan Jakarta 10270 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 573 31 27 Fax : +62 21 573 31 27 E-mail: aspnetind@cbn.net.id

Ms Shafiah Fifi Muhibat Researcher Department of International Relations Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Jl. Tanah Abang III No. 23-27 Jakarta 10160 Indonesia

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Tel: +62 21 386 5535 Fax: +62 21 384 7517 E-mail: shfifi@csis.or.id

Malaysia Ms Astanah Abdul Aziz

Principle Assistant Secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs Malaysia Wisma Putra Precinct 2 Putrajaya 62602 Malaysia Tel: +603 8887 4233 Fax: +603 8889 1717 E-mail: astanah@kln.gov.my

Myanmar H. E. Mr U Khin Zaw Win

Ambassador Embassy of the Union of Myanmar Jl. Hj Agus Salim No. 109, Menteng Jakarta Indonesia Tel: +62 21 315 8089, 315 9095 Fax: +62 21 316 0079 E-mail: Myanmar@cbn.net.id

Mr Aung Ba Kyu Counsellor Embassy of the Union of Myanmar Jl. Hj Agus Salim No. 109, Menteng Jakarta Indonesia Tel: +62 21 315 8089, 315 9095 Fax: +62 21 316 0079 E-mail: Myanmar@cbn.net.id

Mr Kyaw Sithu Assistant Director Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Yangon (Rangoon)

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Myanmar Tel: +95 1 225 115 (Yangon)/ +95 67 412 057 (Nay Pyi Taw) Fax: +95 67 412 396 E-mail: dyfmukt@myanmar.com.mm

Mr Tin Maung Maung Than Senior Fellow Institute of Southeast Asian Studies ISEAS Building 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Tel: +65 68 70 45 04 Fax: +65 67 75 62 64 E-mail: tin@iseas.edu.sg

Lao PDR Mr Prasith Sayasith

Deputy Director-General of ASEAN Department ASEAN Department Ministry of Foreign Affairs That Luang Rd. Vientiane Lao PDR Tel: +856 21 415 109 Fax: +856 21 413 268 E-mail: –

Mr Bounnheuang Songnavong Deputy Director-General Institute of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Foreign Affairs That Luang Rd. Vientiane Lao PDR Tel: +856 21 25 24 94

Fax: – E-mail: bounnheuang_s@hotmail.com ifa_laos@hotmail.com

The Philippines Mr Denis Lepatan

Senior Special Assitant Department of Foreign Affairs

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2330 Roxas Blvd, Pasay City The Philippines Tel: +632 834 3009 Fax: +632 832 0664 E-mail: denislepatan@dfa.gov.ph

Mr Romeo A. Reyes Independent Consultant in Human Development 702 B Bonifacio Ridge Condominium Fort Bonifacio, Taguig Metro Manila The Philippines Tel: +63 2 729 1212 Fax: – E-mail: rar_119@yahoo.com

Singapore Mr Ang Seow Wei

Assistant Director Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tanglin Singapore 248163 Tel: +62 6379 8537 Fax: +65 6479 5310 E-mail: ang_seow_wei@mfa.gov.sg

Thailand Mr Surin Pitsuwan

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Member of the House of Representatives 57/40 Moo 1, Saima, Maung Nonthaburi 11000 Thailand Tel: +662 595 8211 Fax: +662 595 8212 E-mail: pitsuwan@hotmail.com

H. E. Ms Atchara Seriputra Ambassador Royal Thai Embassy 74 Jalan Imam Bonjol

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Jakarta Pusat 10310 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 390 4052 Fax: +62 21 310 7469, 319 E-mail: atcharas@mfa.go.th

Mr Netithorn Netty Praditsarn

Second Secretary Social Division Department of International Organizations Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand 443 Sri Ayudhaya Road Bangkok 10400 Thailand Tel: +662 643 5065 – 66 Fax: +662 643 5064 E-mail: netithorn@gmail.com

Ms Sujaree Suangtho Director Strategy Group Bureau of Policy and Strategy Ministry of Social Development and Human Security 1034 Krung Kasem Rd. Khet Pomprab Bangkok 10100 Thailand Tel: +662 306 8720 Fax: +662 306 8718 E-mail: sujaree.s@m-society.go.th

Ms Prachayanee Prampan International Affairs Officer Bureau of Policy and Strategy Ministry of Social Development and Human Security 1034 Krung Kasem Rd. Khet Pomprab Bangkok 10100 Thailand Tel: +662 306 8720 Fax: +662 306 8718 E-mail: khunprach@gmail.com

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Mr Surichai Wungaeo Thai National Commission for UNESCO Faculty of Political Science Chulalongkorn University Bangkok 10100 Thailand

Ms Kusuma Nawaphanphinol

Thai National Commission for UNESCO Bureau of International Cooperation Ministry of Education Rachadamnoen Nok Avenue, Dusit Bangkok 10300 Thailand Tel: +66 2628 5646-7 Fax: +66 2281 0953 E-mail: –

Mr Kavi Chongkittavorn Assistant Group Editor The Nation 44 Moo 10 Bagna Trad Road Bangkok 10260 Thailand Tel: +662 317 0042) Fax: +662 317 2071 E-mail: kavi@nationgroup.com

Viet Nam Ms Ha Thi Ngoc Ha

Director of Division of Functional Cooperation ASEAN Department Ministry of Foreign Affairs 7 Chu Van An Street Ha Noi Viet Nam Tel: +84 4 199 3669 Fax: +84 4 834 5758 E-mail: asean.ngocka@mofa.gov.vn

Mr Vu The Hiep Deputy Director-General

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The Institute for International Relations 69 Chua Lang Ha Noi Viet Nam Tel: +844 834 4540 Fax: +844 834 3543 E-mail: vuthehiep2001@yahoo.com

United Nations Development Programme Mr Bo Asplund

Resident Coordinator for United Nations System in Indonesia International experts and resource persons Mr Amitav Acharya

Professor Deputy Director and Head of Research Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies Nanyang Technological University South Spine 4, Level B4 Nanyang Avenue Singapore 639798 Tel: +65 67 90 62 13 Fax: +65 7 93 29 91 E-mail: isaacharya@ntu.edu.sg

Mr Bechir Chourou

Professor University of Carthage 12 avenue du 7 novembre 1164 Hammam-Chatt Tunisia Tel: +216 71 431 260 Fax: +216 71 431 871 E-mail: bechir.chourou@planet.tn

Mr Jakkie Cilliers

Executive Director Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Head Office

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PO Box 1787 Pretoria South Africa Tel: +27 12 346 95 00 Fax: +27 12 460 09 98 E-mail: jcilliers@issafrica.org Website: http://www.iss.co.za/

Mr Guan Xin Ping

Dean Department of Social Work & Social Policy Nankai University Tianjin People’s Republic of China Tel: +86 22 23 50 59 30 Fax: +86 22 23 50 03 27 E-mail: guanxp@nankai.edu.cn

Mr Francisco Rojas Aravena

Secretary-General FLACSO 200 Sur y 75 Este de la Mac Donald Plaza del Sol Curridabat Costa Rica Tel: +506 253 00 82 Fax: +506 234 66 96 E-mail: frojas@flacso.org Website: www.flacso.org

Ms Anara Tabyshalieva

Director Kyrgyz Peace Research Center P.O. Box 1880 Bishkek 720000 Kyrgyz Republic Tel: +3312 28 17 71 Fax: +3312 28 17 71 E-mail: anara1209@hotmail.com

Ms Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh Director Center for Peace and Human Security

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Sciences Po 56, rue des Saints Pères 75007 Paris France Tel: +33 1 45 49 51 46 Fax: +33 1 45 49 59 26 E-mail: shahrbanou.tadjbakhsh@sciences-po.fr Website: www.peacecenter.sciences-po.fr

ASEAN Secretariat H. E. Mr Ong Keng Yong

Secretary-General of ASEAN ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: ongkengyong@aseansec.org

Ms Soeung Rathchavy

Deputy Secretary-General ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: rathchavy@aseansec.org

Mr Termsak Chalermpalanupap

Director Research Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: termsak@aseansec.org

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Mr M. C. Abad, Jr Director ASEAN Regional Forum Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: mcabad@aseansec.org

Ms Moe Thuzar Assistant Director Human Development Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: moe@aseansec.org

Ms Serena Wong Assistant Director Public Affairs Office ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: serena.wong@aseansec.org

Mr Kheo Chhea

Senior Officer Specialized Programmes Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: Chhea@aseansec.org

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Ms Tatik S. Hafidz

Senior Officer Specialized Programmes Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: tatik@aseansec.org

Ms Thitapha Wattanapruttipaisan Senior Officer Studies Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: thitapha@aseansec.org

Ms Teh Lip Li Associate Officer Research Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: lipli@aseansec.org

Ms Ananda Fadila Technical Assistant Specialized Programmes Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234

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E-mail: Ananda@aseansec.org

Mr Nguyen Son Ngoc Attachment Officer ASEAN Regional Forum Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: ngoc@aseansec.org

Ms Retno Astrini

Technical Officer ASEAN Regional Forum Unit ASEAN Secretariat 70 A Jalan Sisingamangaraja Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 7262 991 Fax: +62 21 739 8234 E-mail: retno.astrini@aseansec.org

ASEAN Foundation Ms Renelle Ivy Adan

Programme Officer ASEAN Foundation 2 Jalan Sam Ratulangi, Menteng Jakarta Indonesia Tel: +62 21 3192 4833 / 4828 Fax: +62 21 3192 6078 E-mail: renelle@aseanfoundation.org

UNESCO Secretariat Mr Pierre Sané

Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences UNESCO

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1, rue Miollis 75732 Paris Cedex 15 France Tel: +33 1 45 68 39 23 Fax: +33 1 45 68 57 20 E-mail: p.sane@unesco.org Website: http://www.unesco.org/shs

Mr Hubert Gijzen

Director UNESCO Office Jakarta Regional Science Bureau for Asia & Pacific Cluster Office to Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Timor Leste Jl. Galuh (II) No. 5, Kebayoran Baru Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 739 98 18 (ext. 801) Fax: +62 21 72 79 64 89 E-mail: h.gijzen@unesco.org Website: www.unesco.or.id

Ms Moufida Goucha

Chief Human Security, Democracy and Philosophy Section UNESCO 1, rue Miollis 75732 Paris Cedex 15 France Tel: +33 1 45 68 45 52 Fax: +33 1 45 68 55 52 E-mail: m.goucha@unesco.org Website: http://www.unesco.org/securipax

Mr Darryl Macer

Regional Adviser in Social and Human Sciences for Asia and the Pacific UNESCO Office Bangkok 920 Sukhumvit Road Bangkok 10110 Thailand Tel: +66 2 391 05 77 Fax: +66 2 391 08 66

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E-mail: d.macer@unesco.org Website: http://www.unescobkk.org/

Ms Linda Posadas

Programme Specialist for Basic Sciences UNESCO Office Jakarta Regional Science Bureau for Asia & Pacific Cluster Office to Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Timor Leste Jl. Galuh (II) No. 5, Kebayoran Baru Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 739 98 18 (ext. 804) Fax: +62 21 72 79 64 89 E-mail: l.posadas@unesco.org Website: www.unesco.or.id

Ms Claudia Maresia

Assistant Programme Specialist Human Security, Democracy and Philosophy Section UNESCO 1, rue Miollis 75732 Paris Cedex 15 France Tel: +33 1 45 68 45 54 Fax: +33 1 45 68 55 52 E-mail: c.maresia@unesco.org Website: http://www.unesco.org/securipax

Ms Felicia Angelina

Secretary to Basic Sciences Unit UNESCO Office Jakarta Regional Science Bureau for Asia & Pacific Cluster Office to Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Timor Leste Jl. Galuh (II) No. 5, Kebayoran Baru Jakarta 12110 Indonesia Tel: +62 21 739 98 18 (ext. 820) Fax: +62 21 72 79 64 89 E-mail: f.angelina@unesco.org Website: www.unesco.or.id

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Some UNESCO Publications on Human Security, Peace and Conflict Prevention

IN PROGRESS: - Rethinking Human Security, UNESCO/Blackwell Publishing - UNESCO’s Approach to Human Security - Selected Papers presented at the International Conference on Human Security and Peace in Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, September 2005

****************** AVAILABLE IN BOTH HARD AND SOFT VERSIONS:

Selected papers - International Conference on Human Security in the Arab States, 14-15 March 2005, Amman, Jordan, UNESCO, 2007 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001540/154030E.pdf

Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in Africa UNESCO, 2007 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001544/154406E.pdf

Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in South-East Asia, UNESCO, 2007 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001518/151821E.pdf

Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in Eastern Europe, UNESCO, 2007 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001511/151145E.pdf

Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in Western Europe, UNESCO, 2007 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001511/151144E.pdf

Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in Central Asia, UNESCO, 2006 In English: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001493/149376E.pdf In Russian: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001493/149376R.pdf

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Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in the Arab States, UNESCO, 2005 In English: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001405/140513E.pdf In Arabic: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001405/140513a.pdf

Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in Latin America and the Caribbean, UNESCO, 2005 In English: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001389/138940e.pdf In Spanish: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001389/138940S.pdf Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative and Educational Frameworks in East Asia, UNESCO, 2004 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001388/138892e.pdf Proceedings of the International Conference on ‘Human Security in East Asia’, UNESCO/Korean National Commission for UNESCO/Ilmin International Relations Institute of Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 2004 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001365/136506e.pdf International Conference on Contemporary International Security: Consequences for Human Security in Latin America, Santiago, Chile, August 2003 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001406/140625S.pdf http://www.flacso.cl/flacso/biblos.php?code=642 Human Security, Conflict Prevention and Peace, Proceedings of the Expert Meeting on ‘Peace, Human Security and Conflict Prevention in Latin America and the Caribbean’, UNESCO/FLACSO-Chile, 2002 http://www.unesco.org/securipax/flacsoeboletin.pdf In Spanish: http://www.unesco.org/securipax/seguridad_humana.pdf In English: http://www.unesco.org/securipax/seguridad_humana-english.pdf Peace, Human Security and Conflict Prevention in Africa, Proceedings of the UNESCO–ISS Expert Meeting held in Pretoria, South Africa, 23–24 July 2001 http://www.unesco.org/securipax/UNESCO_ISSfinal.pdf What Agenda for Human Security in the Twenty-first Century?, Proceedings of the First International Meeting of Directors of Peace Research and Training Institutions, UNESCO, 2001 http://www.unesco.org/securipax/whatagenda.pdf

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Second edition, UNESCO, 2005 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001405/140553E.pdf Cooperative Peace in Southeast Asia, UNESCO/ASEAN, 1999 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001162/116272e.pdf What Kind of Security?, UNESCO, 1998 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001096/109626eo.pdf Quelle sécurité ?, UNESCO, 1997 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001096/109626f.pdf From Partial Insecurity to Global Security, UNESCO/IHEDN, 1997 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001106/110639e.pdf Des insécurités partielles à la sécurité globale, UNESCO/IHEDN, 1997 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001106/110639fo.pdf

Website address: http://www.unesco.org/securipax Contact E-mail address: peace&security@unesco.org

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