Operationalizing Human Security: What Role for the Responsibility to Protect?

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/00208817231154054
Published date01 January 2023
Date01 January 2023
Subject MatterResearch Articles
https://doi.org/10.1177/00208817231154054
International Studies
60(1) 29 –44, 2023
© 2023 Jawaharlal Nehru University
Reprints and permissions:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/00208817231154054
journals.sagepub.com/home/isq
Research Article
Operationalizing Human
Security: What Role
for the Responsibility
to Protect?
Raymond Kwun-Sun Lau1
Abstract
The concept of human security, whose origin could be traced back to the 1994
Human Development Report published by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) represents an ambitious attempt to broaden the meaning
of security and, perhaps most importantly, challenge the state-centric notion of
national security. A resolution (A/RES/66/290) adopted by the United Nations
(UN) General Assembly in September 2012 has, for the first time in UN
history, formally recognized human security as an approach to ‘assist Member
States in identifying and addressing widespread and cross-cutting challenges
to the survival, livelihood and dignity of their people’. While the discussion
of the human security concept continued within the UN, the advocacy of key
UN member states for human security had been shifted to the Responsibility
to Protect (R2P). Considering the fact that the potential role of the R2P to
promote and operationalize human security has not been adequately explored,
this article seeks to understand the positive potential role that R2P can play
in operationalizing human security by exploring the relationship between the
two. Acknowledging the efforts of Lloyd Axworthy, the former Canadian foreign
minister, in situating ‘human security in the R2P era’, this article argues that R2P
plays an important role in clarifying the scope and sharpening the focus of human
security. This, therefore, can help strengthen the implementation of the human
security concept.
Keywords
Responsibility to Protect (R2P), human security, human rights, United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), International Commission on Intervention
and State Sovereignty (ICISS), Commission on Global Governance, the
Commission on Human Security (CHS)
1 Department of Political Science and Sociology, North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Corresponding author:
Raymond Kwun-Sun Lau, Department of Political Science and Sociology, North South University,
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
E-mail: raymond.lau@northsouth.edu
30 International Studies 60(1)
Introduction
It is nearly three decades since the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) incorporated the term ‘human security’ in its 1994 Human Development
Report (UNDP, 1994). Drawing on the State of the Union Address known as the
‘Four Freedoms’ speech by the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin D.
Roosevelt in 1941 (Roosevelt, 1941), human security redefines and broadens the
meaning of security, thereby indicating a people-centred dimension of security.
By placing ‘human’ as the central referent of security, human security represents
a fundamental challenge to the state-centric approach to security.
Human security has, since then, gradually moved onto the agenda of the UN. This
is evidenced by the setting up of the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security
in 1999 and the Commission on Human Security (CHS) in 2003. In its much-
anticipated report Human Security Now, the CHS highlights the aim of human security
is ‘to protect the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms
and human fulfilment’ (UN Commission on Human Security, 2003, p. 4). ‘Human
security’, as the CHS report suggests, means ‘protecting fundamental freedoms—
freedoms that are the essence of life, including protecting people from critical (severe)
and pervasive (widespread) threats and situations’ (UN Commission on Human
Security, 2003, p. 4).
Among the initiatives that followed the release of the 2003 CHS report, one of
the most important developments is the adoption of a resolution by the UN
General Assembly in 2012. This resolution, for the first time in the history of
United Nations, formally recognizes the importance of human security to ‘assist
Member States in identifying and addressing widespread and cross-cutting
challenges to the survival, livelihood and dignity of their people’ (UN General
Assembly, 2012). An agreement reached by the UN General Assembly on a
common understanding of the essence of the human security concept does not
only represent ‘a major advance in the mainstreaming of the concept’, but also a
‘proof of the increasing recognition it has gained in the international community’
(Gómez et al., 2013).
Yet, while the discussion of the human security concept continued within the
UN, the advocacy of key UN member states for human security had been shifted
to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) (Martin & Owen, 2010). Mary Martin and
Taylor Owen (2010, pp. 213–216) suggested that the UN’s hesitancy to endorse
human security is largely attributed to three problems: the lack of conceptual
clarity between development and human security, the ambiguity existing between
human rights and security, and the conceptual overstretch of human security by
the UN. Also, some scholars have criticized the policy application of human
security, arguing that the credibility of the concept had been undermined because
of its promotion and operationalization ‘within the existing political, legal and
normative constraints of the “real world”’ (Newman, 2016).
Notwithstanding the criticism directed at the application of the human security
concept, the potential role of the R2P to promote and operationalize human
security has not been adequately explored. By exploring the relationship between
R2P and human security, this article seeks to understand the positive potential role

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT