Introduction: Human Security at 20 – Lysøen Revisited

Abstract

The 1994 Human Development Report, published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), introduced and formalized the concept of human security. The UN agency argued that the concept of security should be expanded beyond the traditional state-centric, politico-military dimension. According to the Report, human security means economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political security. The concept is generally defined as “freedom from fear” (from direct physical violence) and “freedom from want” (from indirect and nonphysical or structural violence) (UNDP 1994). Although the idea of human security was not entirely new, the UNDP Report made a global impact on intellectual and policy thinking. Sorpong Peou (2014) argues that the study of human security has now emerged as an academic field. However, as David Black, Astri Suhrke and others point out in their respective articles in this special issue, human security as a normative concept has lost much of its persuasive power among policymakers. Our purpose here is not to ignore this policy challenge but to assess the progress the human security agenda has made, identify remaining obstacles, and continue the search for more creative ways that would help us build a more humane world. How has the concept of human security evolved? More can be learned from the various papers presented in this special issue, but a brief discussion is necessary. While the UNDP and the UN Secretariat under the leadership of Kofi Annan played an instrumental role in pushing the human security agenda forward, it was a group of individual intellectuals and government officials who pioneered this agenda. Although the UNDP championed the new security agenda, it was a Pakistani government official, Mahbub ul Haq (after his appointment in 1989 as Special Advisor to the UNDP Administrator) who led a Asian Journal of Peacebuilding Vol. 2 No. 2 (2014): 143-149 Special Issue Article