Human security

Introduction: Human Security and Whose Security?

Much is said about the true nature of security and the individuals affected by it. The developments of threats around the world have transformed our understanding of the security and the importance behind the term. Since the Cold-War era ended, the world has experienced various threats through internal and external conflicts, such as diseases, poverty, economic downturn, natural disasters, and organized crime . These growing threats and widespread fear and insecurities challenge individuals to attain peace for the development of the human race.

When focusing on security, it is vital to know whose securities are affected. The focus of the security affects every individual, whether they differ in race, age group, nationality, religion, or gender. The notion of protecting its individuals and focusing on promoting peace and aid towards a state, or neighboring state, is defined by human security to alleviate sufferings and undertaking disparities.

In 1994, The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) used the idea of human security associated to “basic economic and social rights, like the right to food, to health and social security.” Since then, human security studies have engrossed rising attention to numerous International Relations scholars. Human security is characterized by the awareness to the new threats that are developing internally, such as organized crime, human trafficking, unemployment, natural disasters and many more. The people who are mostly affected by these threats are often the civilians; mainly women and children. Human security aims to relieve internal threats and to resolve differences in a state to accumulate human development. Its advocates have engrossed on...

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...it is they are intended to study. Second, “human security appears to have an interest in keeping the term expansive and vague.” The term tends to be slippery because its lacks accuracy.

Hampson, therefore, sees the relationship of globalization and human security as one of its unresolved issue that many scholars debated upon. On one side of the argument, globalization supporters argue that the spread of trade and global markets across the globe help people raise their income and help distribute wealth between families. By doing so, this breaks down the income inequality and national gap between the Global North and the Global South. On the other hand, there are globalization pessimists who argue that globalization itself presents danger to human security because such contacts to each other help spread diseases such as AIDS which then deteriorates public safety.