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.