Regional security for the 21st century

Regional security for the 21st century

Ali Alatas, Former Indonesian foreign minister, Part 1 of 2

I consider it a distinct privilege to have been invited to be
the Luncheon Speaker at this Pan-Asian Conference on non-
traditional security issues entitled "Asian Security in the 21st
Century Globalization, Environment and Governance". I have been
asked to share with you my thoughts on some new concepts and
approaches on security that have recently enlivened international
discourse, both within and outside the UN.

We may recall that before and during the Cold War era, there
emerged a number of security concepts and approaches, from the
system of collective security as envisaged in the UN Charter,
through the various military alliances and doctrines of nuclear
deterrence constructed by the two major power blocs and the idea
of common security as propounded by the 1982 Olof Palme
Commission to the more inclusive concept of cooperative or
defensive security.

More importantly, since the early seventies the meaning of
security itself has widened and become more comprehensive. It was
acknowledged that international security can no longer be solely
defined in political military terms but should also take into
account such nonmilitary threats to security as structural
underdevelopment, large scale unemployment, resource scarcity,
population pressures, massive cross border migrations and severe
environmental degradation. Indeed, human life itself could be
threatened by such phenomena as global warming and rising sea
levels, the depletion of the ozone layer and the desertification
of vast tracts of land. The inequities and imbalances which still
pervade international economic relations could also have serious
security implications because of their potential to exacerbate
tensions, mutual distrust and antagonisms among nations.

Until quite recently, security issues have been traditionally
perceived and addressed in the context of inter-state relations,
i.e. in terms of protecting the security of a state and its
citizens against threats, particularly military threats, from
other states. Hence, the principal objective of security efforts
was the protection of the territorial integrity and national
sovereignty of the state against external threats by other
states.

However, the gradual shift in the nature of armed conflicts,
from inter-state wars to armed conflict and turmoil within
states, as well as the rise of new types of security problems
such as those caused by terrorism, illegal drug trafficking,
transnational organized crime, gross violations of human rights
and environmental destruction, have made us realize that when
states are secure it does not automatically follow that the
people, the human beings within them, are secure.

The truth of this was brought home to us with devastating
force and chilling effect by the horrendous terrorist attacks on
New York City's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in
Washington, D.C.

Thus, while security of states from external aggression or war
remains an important requisite to ensure the security of their
people and the threat of inter-state war has be no means
vanished, the past few years have seen the emergence and
relevance of a new concept, that of human security. Broadly
defined, human security embraces the safety of the individual
human being and of people from both violent and non-violent
threats. The underlying philosophy of the human security approach
is that the objective of security should not solely be conceived
and pursued in terms of the interests of the state, but rather in
terms of the needs of the human being.

The term "human security" may have been coined rather
recently. Its basic idea, however, is not new at all. The work of
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), since its
founding more than a century ago, has been principally dedicated
to ensuring the security of people as expressed in, inter alla,
the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Protocols. The essential
elements of this concept are also contained in the UN Charter and
the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

The phrase "human security" perhaps first appeared in the 1994
UNDP Human Development Report, where a wide-ranging definition of
human security was attempted. Being a development agency, the
UNDP, in defining the term, not surprisingly focussed on threats
to security as associated with underdevelopment and not so much
on the dimensions of human insecurity resulting from conflict or
violence. Nevertheless, by focussing on the human approach and
emphasizing the non-traditional threats, the UNDP undeniably has
made a significant contribution to the expansion of the concept
of security in this post-Cold War era.

Human security was never meant to supplant state or national
security, but rather to complement it. By improving the human
security of its people, the stability and security of the state
is enhanced. Conversely, in a stable, democratically governed and
secure state, the human security of its citizens is advanced.

Having thus defined the concept of human security and the
range of possible threats to it, the pertinent question that may
arise is: what can and should the international community do to
ensure the security of threatened human beings, to promote and
achieve human security?

Two types of measures or actions can be divided into two
parts.

Firstly, to "legislate" or create new norms of international
law that would encourage and strengthen a people-centered
approach to security. In fact, the international community, both
within the UN and outside it, has already begun to do this, as
exemplified by the recently signed convention banning anti-
personnel mines and the treaty establishing the International
Criminal Court.

I am also aware that a number of countries as well as the
relevant bodies of the UN continue to pursue similar efforts
towards such issues as: control of small arms, prohibition of the
exploitation of children in armed conflict and the combat against
translational organized crime.

Secondly, to take remedial or repressive action when and where
prevention has failed. It is in this context, and after the
tragic events in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina and more
recently in Kosovo and East Timor, that an acute dilemma is being
faced by the international community and specifically by the U.N.
with regard to the evolving concept called humanitarian
intervention.

This article is excerpted from his speech delivered on Oct. 11,
at the Pan-Asian Conference on Non-Traditional Security Issues,
in Singapore.