Securitizing Health: Biosecurity and Postwar Reconstruction in Korea

Abstract

In the winter of 1951, while the war was still raging in the Korean peninsula, the Government of Republic of Korea made a formal request to the United Nations Korea Reconstruction Agency (UNKRA) to dispatch experts to help the war-ridden nation develop long-term plans for recovery and reconstruction. The UNKRA accepted this request and further took up the matter with the United Nations Assembly, which passed the motion to send expert missions in the areas requested by the South Korean government - agriculture, public health and education. To assist the war-damaged South Korea, experts were culled from three United Nations specialized agencies - the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This paper will examine these three plans drafted by the FAO, WHO and UNESCO in 1952 to explore how securitization of health or biosecurity was articulated in the planning for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of post-war Korea. The long-term plans of postwar rehabilitation and reconstruction by UNKRA have been cited as experiments in development and modernization. However, by applying the concept of securitization of health or biosecurity, this paper will show how the interpretation of health as a security matter was conceptualized by the international actors involved in the postwar reconstruction of Korea.