The post-Cold War global security environment can be characterised by an increase of diversification of non-physical and cross-border threats posed by non-state actors.8 To meet the challenges in the new era, the narrowly interpreted concept of security that is
8 See Victor D. Cha, “Globalization and the Study of International Security,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 37, No. 3 (May 2000), pp. 391-403; and Sam J. Tangredi, “Effects of Globalization on Military Operations,” The European Legacy, Vol. 8, No. 3 (June 2003), pp. 299-315.
concerned with security of territory from external threats should be modified. The problem of conventional security studies is that the key to related studies has been military force, not security per se.9 The conventional security concern exclusively focuses on the national pursuit of defence against any threat to its territorial integrity and of assurance of its very survival. Therefore, the most powerful means in safeguarding national security is military. However, the threats to a nation or to human beings in the globalised world are multi-dimensional. The facts that the world has continued to witness losses of human lives and well-beings at a large scale and that the state alone can sometimes be helpless in deterring these threats remind us that the core concept of security should be switched from state-centric orientation back to people-centred concerns. The security of people should be placed ahead of other security concerns.10 Human security offers the world an opportunity to look back to the normative ideas about security that is supposed to seek to safeguard individuals.
The concept of human security is based on the concerns about the well-being of people instead of the physical security of states.11 More importantly, not only are people within the national boundaries the major concern of human security, people outside the national borders also become the focus of attention.12 To locate human security in a broad framework of security studies, some criteria may be useful. First, concerning the reference object, human security points to the protection of universal rights for people as the ultimate goal for which security is to provide. Second, in terms of values, human security attempts to observe and guard a set of particular
9 David Baldwin, “The Concept of Security,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1 (January 1997), p. 9.
10 See Lloyd Axworthy, “Human Security and Global Governance: Putting People First,” Global Governance, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Winter 2001), pp. 19-23. Axworthy was formerly Canadian Foreign Minister and a strong advocate of human security.
11 Laura Reed and Majid Tehranian, “Evolving Security Regimes,” in Tehranian (ed.), Worlds Apart:
Human Security and Global Governance (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999), p. 24.
12 Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, “New Threats to Human Security in the Era of Globalization,” Journal of Human Development, Vol. 4, No. 2 (July 2003), p. 171.
norms of behaviour as its core values. Third, regarding sources of threat, human security can be understood as concerns about the prevention from a wide range of hazards, such as environmental degradation, exploitation of labour and many others.
Fourth, as to means, to protect human security needs a more comprehensive way of dealing with threat than military-oriented security can offer. Fifth, roles of state and non-state actors, which have been seen as agents for the attainment of security, and interactions between them are important in the discussion of governance of human security, among which global governance is a new way of thinking to strengthen human security. Sixth, in terms of the relationship between the state and the individual, the rights of states stipulated in international laws, such as use of force, are justified solely by the benefit the state confers to the individual and by people’s continuing consent and democratic representation.13
The official UNDP Human Development Report in 1994 laid the foundation for further discussions and evolution of human security. Following works have ever since revolved around two sides of definition of human security: First, in the active side, security should be aimed at ‘protecting the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfilment,’ as well as empowering individuals and communities to develop the capabilities for making informed choices and acting on their own behalves; Second, in the passive side, people should be protected from severe and pervasive threats, both natural and societal causes, and from emancipation from national or local oppressive power structures.14
Among the emerging sources of threats to human beings, public health is one of
13 Julie Gilson and Phillida Purvis, “Japan’s Pursuit of Human Security: Humanitarian Agenda or Political Pragmatism?” Japan Forum, Vol. 15, No. 2 (September 2003), pp. 194-195. Also, Matt McDonald, “Human Security and the Construction of Security,” Global Society, Vol. 16, No. 3 (July 2002), p. 279; and Bain, “The Tyranny of Benevolence,” p. 282.
14 See Commission on Human Security, Human Security Now: Protecting and Empowering People (New York: Commission on Human Security, 2003); also, Ogata and Cels, “Human Security,” p. 274;
and Caroline Thomas, “Introduction,” in C. Thomas and Peter Wilkin (eds.) Globalization, Human Security, and the African Experience (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1999), p. 3.
the most menacing and noticeable threats to human security. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are 17.7 million people approximately who die from infectious diseases every year, outnumbering those death in the conventional forms, such as military conflicts. Also, the deaths caused by infectious diseases account for 26% of total global mortality. Among the communicable diseases, HIV/AIDS is one of the most threatening diseases to human well-being. It is estimated that 42 million people live with the disease, most of who are in under-developed nations. On average around 5 million people are infected and 3 million die every year.15 In addition, malaria causes 300 million cases and tuberculosis infects 60 million people every year. As one of the leading infectious diseases that cause adult mortality, tuberculosis brings two million deaths each year.
Therefore, it is necessary to make public health a cross-border issue and to network health policy into a global system that requires primary health and disease surveillance systems. The spread of SARS in 2003 globally also demonstrates the necessity of developing a global mechanism to strengthen co-operation in uniting efforts to curb the spread of infectious diseases.16
However, it has to say that some, if not most, of the fatalities resulting from communicable diseases are not unavoidable, as these threats may come from poverty, ignorance and corruption, all of which need special attention to remedy. Security mechanism in terms of public health is essential to fight against diseases. Such mechanism includes the following measures. First, quarantine is a hard decision to make but a necessary measure in the event of disease outbreak. In a more globalised world, and particularly in a democracy, restrictions on free movement require hard evidence to support such actions and public health crisis is surely one of the situations
15 UNAIDS, Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic 2002 (Geneva: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 2002).
16 Ogata and Cels, “Human Security,” pp. 278-279.
that urgently induce the authorities to impose quarantine. Second, travel advisories are needed for home citizens and foreigners alike to provide real-time and accurate information concerning public health problems. It is possible that any announcement of travel advisory can have economic impacts on the affected areas as it can dissuade foreign visitors to come, but ignorance of real situations can cause even long-term damage when people lose confidence in public health in the societies concerned.
Third, immigration and border controls can check the scale and speed of disease spread, though they can possibly have political and diplomatic implications for the relationship of the countries affected with others. Finally, public information programmes are required to ‘educate’ people with new knowledge of any emerging new threat and with operable measures to fight collectively.
Public health has gradually become widely perceived as one of the dimensions of human security, but it is still debatable whose security comes first, national security or security of individuals. At the beginning of the SARS outbreak, China concealed the truth of SARS in name of national security. But in retrospect, if China could have been able to act earlier and more actively with more openness, SARS may not have been so devastating as it turned out to be. Instead, what the world had witnessed was that China took 4.5 months to alert the WHO. The golden opportunities to confine the disease therefore faded away.
The impact of HIV/AIDS is another example that demonstrates how damaging a communicable disease can be. Since AIDS became known, there have been 25 million people who die of it. Each year, another 3 million new cases are reported. In 2000, the United Nation Security Council, which had exclusively focused on political and security dimensions of world affairs before, announced that AIDS was a national and international security threat, the first time to declare a public health problem in its 50-year history. Subsequently, the G7/G8 summits, comprising the richest industrial
nations, held in Okinawa and Genoa, also expressed concerns over HIV/AIDS crisis.17 However, many nations are still reluctant to see public health to become security concerns and they tend to treat the communicable diseases as merely social/economic issues.
Although the scale of outbreak and the number of fatalities caused by SARS are significantly less severe than AIDS, it was perceived at the time of outbreak as a threat to human beings, no less serious than AIDS. First, SARS was highly contagious, particularly when people had little knowledge about how it was spread and how people got infected. Second, the average fatal rate of SARS was as high as 10%. Third, there were at least 28 countries affected by SARS within a period of 6-month time since the first outbreak in China. There were 8,500 probable cases around the globe and among them 820 fatal cases were reported (see the following diagram).
SARS Statistics
17 Dennis Altman, “AIDS and Security,” International Relations, Vol. 17, No. 4 (December 2003), pp.
417-427.
Total
8,096 774 9.6* Others: Australia, Macao, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Ireland, Korea, Romania, Russia, S. Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand,
UK
Source: http://www.who.int/csr/sars/en
It is here worth noting how countries ‘securitised’ SARS issue. During the SARS period, Taiwan, for example, conducted the following steps that could be seen as security measures vis-à-vis SARS. As SARS was first found in China, Taiwan issued travel advisories whereby restricting normal contacts between the two sides. When Taiwan had the first case while China refused Taiwan to have access to WHO, the hostility between the two was further intensified. At the same time, Taiwan painted the Chinese government as a regime that lacked the capabilities in crisis management.
For its part, the Taiwanese government saw the disease as an enemy that had to be defeated. The way Taiwan tried to prevent SARS from crossing borders before the outbreak looked like fighting a war out of its territories. The government tightened border controls by limiting not only foreign citizens of affected countries, but also its own people who were suspected as possible reservoir. In order to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of fighting against SARS, Taiwan mobilised all necessary means and resources, and bypassed normal law-making and decision-making processes. The daily press conference on SARS resembled the way the Americans and the British held war briefings during the Iraq war, which occurred almost at the same time of SARS. Internationally, Taiwan constantly appealed for its aspiration to be admitted to WHO by making the SARS issue a security concern. All these steps taken
by the Taiwanese government resembled a war against an enemy.18
Taiwan surely was not alone in identifying the communicable diseases as security threats. In 1995, a US Government-supported study declared that infectious diseases constitute a threat to its national security. In the following year, US Department of Defence established a Global Emerging Infectious Surveillance and Response System based on a network of its military laboratories. In 2000, US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) acknowledged that threat posed by microbial agents can compromise US security. And in the same year, UN Security Council concluded that microbial ‘foes’ threaten international peace and security. It is evident that concerns about communicable diseases have contributed to the human security realm that in turn has reformed the concept of security.
Conclusion
This research attempted to emphasise the importance of setting a new security agenda focusing on human dimension. In the new security studies, we have to re-consider the basic concept of security. First, whose security should prevail? In this new world order, only individual security is guarded and then the state can be secure. Second, where are insecurities from? Threats to individual security may be in multiple forms. Third, how are insecurities spread? They can easily be transmitted across the borders. Fourth, who are responsible for safeguarding security? In addition to the state, non-state actors also play important roles in emerging security mechanism. Fifth, when are insecurities
18 As a matter of fact, many countries took measures against SARS like fighting a war or bioterrorism.
See Melissa Curley and Nicholas Thomas, “Human Security and Public Health in Southeast Asia: The SARS Outbreak,” Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 58, No. 1 (March 2004), pp. 17-32.
Also Joseph W. Foxell, Jr., “The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome,” American Foreign Policy Interests, Vol. 25, No. 4 (August 2003), p. 248.
spread? And when are they perceived by people as threat? Thanks to modern communication, real-time transmission of insecurities-related information makes these threats look imminent.
We are now facing a new world where new insecurities, including global crime, human trafficking, instability in financial markets, environmental degradation, communicable diseases and many others, pose great threat to human security and national security as a whole. In order to defend the human security, we need to build a new global framework. The basic elements include: First, the concept of sovereignty in traditional form should be adapted to meet the modern needs. Second, in addition to the state, non-state actors should be involved in security decision-making and policy-implementing processes. Third, coordinative methods across the global in scrutinising any source of threat should be conducted on a real-time basis.19 Fourth,
‘international’ organisations and regimes should open their memberships to non-state actors. Fifth, the way the modern world is governed should be based on democratic principle. All human beings, where belonging to any state, should be seen as equal and should therefore be taken care of. No one should be left without being given proper care. It is based on this belief that we all have to work closely to build the world a better and more democratic place to live.
19 Elizabeth M. Prescott, “SARS: A Warning,” Survival, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Autumn 2003), p. 222.