significance of human rights for the promotion of human welfare in modern society?
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Answer:
HUMAN SECURITY: UNDERMINING HUMAN RIGHTS?
Keywords: human rights regime; human security; sovereignty; responsibility to protect.
This paper warns that the human security discourse and agenda could inadvertently
undermine the international human rights regime. It argues that in so far as human
security identifies new threats to well-being, new victims of those threats, new duties of
states, and/or new mechanisms of dealing with threats at the inter-state level, it adds to
the established human rights regime. In so far as it simply rephrases human rights
principles without identifying new threats, victims, duty-bearers, or mechanisms, at best
it complements human rights and at worst it could undermine them. The narrow view of
human security, as defined below, is a valuable addition to the international normative
regime requiring state and international action against severe threats to human beings. By
contrast, the broader view of human security at best repeats, and possibly undermines, the
already extant human rights regime, especially by converting state obligations to respect
individuals’ inalienable human rights into policy decisions regarding which aspects of
human security to protect under which circumstances. The two may be competing
discourses, despite arguments by some scholars (Tadjbakhsh and Chenoy 2007, 12) that
they are not.
Human Security: the Concept
The term “human security” was introduced into international discussion in the
1990s as a response to new (or more generalized) "downside risks” that could affect
everyone. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) defined human security
as both "safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression" and
2
"protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life"
HUMAN SECURITY: UNDERMINING HUMAN RIGHTS?
Keywords: human rights regime; human security; sovereignty; responsibility to protect.
This paper warns that the human security discourse and agenda could inadvertently
undermine the international human rights regime. It argues that in so far as human
security identifies new threats to well-being, new victims of those threats, new duties of
states, and/or new mechanisms of dealing with threats at the inter-state level, it adds to
the established human rights regime. In so far as it simply rephrases human rights
principles without identifying new threats, victims, duty-bearers, or mechanisms, at best
it complements human rights and at worst it could undermine them. The narrow view of
human security, as defined below, is a valuable addition to the international normative
regime requiring state and international action against severe threats to human beings. By
contrast, the broader view of human security at best repeats, and possibly undermines, the
already extant human rights regime, especially by converting state obligations to respect
individuals’ inalienable human rights into policy decisions regarding which aspects of
human security to protect under which circumstances. The two may be competing
discourses, despite arguments by some scholars (Tadjbakhsh and Chenoy 2007, 12) that
they are not.
Human Security: the Concept
The term “human security” was introduced into international discussion in the
1990s as a response to new (or more generalized) "downside risks” that could affect
everyone. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) defined human security
as both "safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression" and
2
"protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life"