Human Security: Undermining Human Rights?

This article warns that the human security discourse and agenda could inadvertently undermine the international human rights regime. Insofar as human security identifies new threats to well-being, new victims of those threats, new duties of states, or new mechanisms for dealing with threats at the inter-state level, it adds to the established human rights regime. When it simply rephrases human rights principles without identifying new threats, victims, duty-bearers, or mechanisms, however, at best it complements human rights and at worst it undermines them. A narrow view of human security is a valuable addition to the international normative regime requiring wstate and international action against severe threats to human beings. By contrast, an overly broad view of human security ignores the human rights regime; by subsuming human rights under human security, it also undermines the primacy of civil and political rights as a strategic tool for citizens to fight for their rights against their own states

Half a million excess deaths in the Iraq war:Terms and conditions may apply

Hagopian et al. (2013) published a headline-grabbing estimate for the Iraq war of half a million excess deaths , i.e. deaths that would not have happened without the war. We reanalyse the data from the University Collaborative Iraq Mortality Study and refute their dramatic claim. The Hagopian et al. (2013) estimate has four main defects: i) most importantly, it conflates non-violent deaths with violent ones; ii) it fails to account for the stratified sampling design of the UCIMS; iii) it fully includes all reported deaths regardless of death certificate backing, even when respondents say they have a death certificate but cannot produce one when prompted; iv) it adds approximately 100,000 speculative deaths not supported by data. Thus, we reject the 500,000 estimate. Indeed, we find that the UCIMS data cannot even support a claim that the number of non-violent excess deaths in the Iraq war has been greater than zero. We recommend future research to follow our methodological lead in two main directions; supplement traditional excess death estimates with excess death estimates for non-violent deaths alone, and use differences-in-differences estimates to uncover the relationship between violence and non-violent death rates

HUMAN TRAFFICKING: A THREAT TO STATE SECURITY AND HUMAN SECURITY

Abstract: The study observes the core of both trafficking in persons and security offering a preliminary understanding the interconnection between the two concepts which is indeed a precondition of the more thorough contemplation of this security problem. Noteworthy is also the further elaboration of the risk that link between violence and modern-day slavery represents having in mind society and the individual. This informal economy violates the principle of morality and is understood to be one of the most offensive crimes. Its elementary features are psychological and/ or physical torture, coercing into engaging in the violation of the law and established social norms as well as transporting and harboring. The consequence of all of this is the material gain, whereas the victim appears as Machiavellian means the gain will justify. Trafficking emerges in different forms, the most discernible of which are forced labor and sexual exploitation that is among the hardest forms of desecrating human soul. Unfortunately, it is a common phenomenon that many people (some independent estimates mention a figure of several million) around the world, women and children, in particular, every year become victims of this violence. Tough living conditions, as well as uncertain economic future, are among fundamental causes infecting healthy society. If a well-organised criminal network or a ‘hidden economy’ succeeds to impose the rule of conduct, then human trafficking finds fertile soil in which to grow. Having been lured the victims later realize where they are, but many never return to their families, and that terrible fate should make society do what can be done and help them. Key words: Human, state, trafficking, security, smuggling

Human security: Concept and practice

In the era of multiplying and escalating risks, both at national and international level, security of individual –popularly known as human security- from pervasive threats and fears become an area of intellectual discourse and policy debate. This is especially significant after the end of cold war, emergence of multi-polarity and proliferation of global terrorism. However, there is no established concept of human security in mainstream social science debates across the world. In the absence of a theory of human security, there exist few quantitative indicators and hence few data base on human security. More recently political theorists tried to develop a concept of human security based on the concept of human development and human rights. Yet, social science theory has not yet come forward with a comprehensive view of what exactly constitute human security. The matter is further complicated by the process of globalization and the high social costs associated with it. Against this context, this article attempts to analyze the concept of human security and its implication in a global context threatened by multiple forces of fear and insecurity. Introductory section gives historical background of human security and its recent interpretations through institutional interventions. The institutional mechanisms include UNDP report of 1994, International Commission on intervention and state sovereignty etc. Section two analyzes theoretical contributions of Amartya Sen, Emma Rothschild, Thomas, King and Murray, Kanti Bajpai, Hampton, and Leaning in popularizing the concept of human security. Section three defines human security from different dimensions and highlights the relevance of broader and inclusive concept of human security in the post cold war era. Section four analyzes positive and negative approaches towards human security in application level. Positive human security is analyzed on the basis of initiatives of Canada, Norway and Japan towards Human Security centric governance and its impact on economic and social security. Negative Approach is evaluated in the context of USA and EU policy in Middle East and other countries.Human Security; Foreign Policy; Security

The Role of NGOs in Human Security

Human security is fundamentally concerned with helping people to deal with unforeseeable threats and sudden downturns, whether international financial crises, environmental disasters or incapacitating illnesses. In this paper I argue that NGOs, as one of the most visible sets of actors in the related fields of human development and human rights, can play a significant role in helping to achieve human security. NGOs are especially well suited to action for human security because of their size and reach, closeness to local populations, willingness to confront the status quo, and ability to address transnational threats through coalition-building. While NGOs face many obstacles in reorienting their activities explicitly towards human security, including the cyclical nature of the aid monies on which many of them depend and the high costs of networking, I argue that the human security framework will nonetheless attract many NGOs to its approach.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 12. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers