Human Security: Concept and Evolution in the United Nations

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Martin Wählisch
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Human Security ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Social Perspectives ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Status ◽  
The United Nations

In 1994, the Human Development Report of the un Development Programme (undp) drew for the first time global attention to the concept of ‘human security’, which has led to a series of debates in the United Nations.1 The report emphasized that without the promotion of ‘people-centered development’ none of the objectives of the global development agenda can be achieved, neither peace, human rights, environmental protection, reduced population growth, nor social integration. The idea of the human security concept is to approach security beyond a purely State-focused military angle, but also include humanitarian, political, economic and social perspectives. In 2001, un Secretary General Kofi Annan reemphasized in the Millennium Report that the ‘freedom from want’ and ‘freedom from fear’ embrace more than the absence of violent conflict, but encompasses human rights, good governance, access to education and health care and ensuring that each individual has opportunities and choices to fulfil his or her potential. In 2005, the World Summit Outcome Document called for defining the scope of human security in the General Assembly more precisely. In 2012, the un General Assembly finally adopted a common understanding of the human security notion. This article gives an overview of the evolution of the human security concept in the United Nations. It looks at its historical development, codification attempts and the recent debate in the General Assembly. The article highlights arguments of critics and advocates of the human security approach, who have been trying to identify linkages between security, development and the respect for human rights. The article describes the status of international practice, indicating the trend of gradual implementation of human security aspects in national, regional and international policy frameworks. The term ‘human security’ has eventually entered the active vocabulary of governmental officials, diplomats, military decision-makers, humanitarian and other non-governmental organizations, serving increasingly as a reference point for more comprehensive policy planning with regard to security and development challenges.

International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law

1993 ◽  
Vol 33 (293) ◽  
pp. 94-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Doswald-Beck ◽  
Sylvain Vité
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The United Nations

International humanitarian law is increasingly perceived as part of human rights law applicable in armed conflict. This trend can be traced back to the United Nations Human Rights Conference held in Tehran in 1968 which not only encouraged the development of humanitarian law itself, but also marked the beginning of a growing use by the United Nations of humanitarian law during its examination of the human rights situation in certain countries or during its thematic studies. The greater awareness of the relevance of humanitarian law to the protection of people in armed conflict, coupled with the increasing use of human rights law in international affairs, means that both these areas of law now have a much greater international profile and are regularly being used together in the work of both international and non-governmental organizations.

The United Nations Special Procedures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thérèse Murphy ◽  
Amrei Müller
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Health ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Iterative Process ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The United Nations

This chapter examines the UN Special Procedures, a system of independent experts appointed to monitor and report on human rights violations and to advise and assist in promoting and protecting rights. It positions the Special Procedures as a “missing population,” neglected not just by proponents of global health but by human rights advocates too. This chapter sets out to counter this neglect by “peopling” human rights law. It does this by adding the Special Rapporteurs and others who make up the system of Special Procedures, positioning these experts as an essential supplement to the actors—courts, treaty bodies, non-governmental organizations, victims, and states—that dominate accounts of human rights law. Adding Special Procedures would help in particular to address the widespread failure to see human rights law as a deliberative and iterative process that draws in a range of actors.

Non-governmental Organizations

2018 ◽  
pp. 345-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Schroeder ◽  
Paul Wapner
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

What is the relationship between the United Nations and civil society? Has the relationship changed over time? This chapter demonstrates how both the UN and civil society benefit from sustained interaction. It investigates civil society’s role in the UN’s struggle to gain legitimacy, assert its authority, and carry out its missions. Similarly, it explores how civil society actors engage the UN as they work to garner credibility, support, and governing authority. It argues that the limitations of statism—the overriding power of states in world affairs—inspire the UN to work with civil society and encourage both the UN and civil society to make claims to be representatives of the world’s peoples. It starts by defining civil society and then describes the cooperative and conflictual interactions between the UN and civil society. The chapter concludes by analyzing these interactions in the context of questions of legitimacy, accountability, and good governance.

The Latin American Contribution to the Constitution of the World

2019 ◽  
pp. 198-224
Author(s):  
Katherine M. Marino
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Status ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Anglo American

This chapter explains how Latin American feminists pushed women’s rights into the United Nations Charter at the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO) in San Francisco. Bertha Lutz and a number of Latin American feminists with whom she collaborated–Minerva Bernardino from the Dominican Republic, Amalia de Castillo Ledón from Mexico, and Isabel Pinto de Vidal from Uruguay–as well as Jessie Street from Australia, were responsible for pushing women’s rights into several parts of the UN Charter and for proposing what became the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women. They did this over the express objections of the U.S. and British female delegates to the conference who believed that women’s rights were too controversial or not important enough to include. These Latin American women also worked alongside representatives from “smaller nations” and from U.S. non-governmental organizations like the NAACP to push “human rights” into the Charter. At the UNCIO, the racism that Lutz experienced from U.S. and British delegates, lack of U.S. and British support, and overweening power of the "Big Four" in the constitution of the United Nations, caused her to turn away from her long-time Anglo-American-philia and identify as a "Latin American."

Introduction

1981 ◽  
Vol 75 (10) ◽  
pp. 393-393
Author(s):  
Kurt Waldheim ◽  
Mary Ellen Mulholland
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
National Development ◽  
Disabled Persons ◽  
Development Strategies ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Member States ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Full Participation ◽  
The United Nations

“By proclaiming 1981 as the International Year of Disabled Persons, the General Assembly of the United Nations aimed at focusing attention on the enjoyment by disabled persons of rights and opportunities in order to ensure their full participation and integration into society. The effort to find solutions to the problem of disabled persons should be an integral part of national development strategies. There is thus a need to secure the participation of all Member States, as well as relevant governmental and non-governmental organizations in the preparation and implementation of the programme of the International Year of Disabled Persons.”

The Dangers of the United Nations' “New Security Agenda”: “Human Security” in the Asia-Pacific Region

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Ben Saul
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Asia Pacific Region ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
The United Nations

AbstractAmidst the understandable enthusiasm for enlarging the traditional state-centred view of security and embracing a “human security” agenda, little scholarly attention has been paid to the implications of this shift for international law. This article first charts the scope and genesis of “human security,” including within the United Nations and in the Asia-Pacific region, and traces the views of key Asian governments on the concept. It then analyses the relationship between human security and human rights and highlights the likely adverse impacts on human rights law. The remainder of the article considers how the human security agenda may destabilize the constitutional distribution of powers among UN organs under the UN Charter, especially by transferring power away from the more participatory General Assembly and towards the less representative and less accountable Security Council. In line with the position of some Asian States, this article reasserts that UN organs other than the Security Council, along with other major international institutions, are the appropriate bodies within which to pursue and address human security issues. In particular, the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council require revitalization to avoid the trap of securitizing issues that are better framed as developmental and social concerns.

Putting Intersectionality to Work: Non-governmental Organizations

2021 ◽  
pp. 189-208
Author(s):  
Johanna Bond
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
International Human ◽  
The United Nations

Just as the UN treaty bodies have been increasingly willing to consider intersectionality in the international human rights context, many nongovernmental organizations have also incorporated an intersectional approach into their human rights advocacy. NGOs enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the treaty bodies, holding the treaty bodies accountable for their human rights work while also accepting guidance from the treaty bodies as to how best to engage with the UN system. This reciprocal dynamic makes NGOs a fruitful source for exploring their potential to advocate for intersectional approaches within the United Nations and for examining ways in which the treaty bodies might also encourage NGOs to use intersectional frameworks in their own advocacy work. The growing acceptance of intersectionality within the United Nations and within the civil society sector is mutually reinforcing and holds the promise of more comprehensive remedies for human rights victims.

World Meteorological Organization

1955 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-290
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Executive Committee ◽  
United Nations Educational ◽  
Cultural Organization ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The United Nations

Executive CommitteeThe fifth session of the Executive Committee of the World Meteorological Organi-zation (WMO) was held in Geneva from August 25 to September II, 1954, and was devoted, in large part, to preparations for the second WMO Congress, scheduled to open on April 14, 1955. The Committee reviewed the plans for the WMO program for the second financial period (1956–1960) in the light of the experience of the organization and with special attention to requests of meteorological services, other specialized agencies and the United Nations. The financial and staffing implications of the pro-posed program were also reviewed. The Committee examined the status of the ternal relations of WMO, which had recently established relations with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and which had granted consultative status to nine non-governmental organizations. Proposed amendments to the organization's General Regulations were approved for submission to the Congress, along with amendments to the Internal Staff Regulations designed to bring them into greater conformity with those of other international organizations.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

1996 ◽  
pp. 69
Author(s):  
Editorial board Of the Journal
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Universal Declaration ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
The United Nations

GENERAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS Adopted and proclaimed in resolution 217 A (III) of the General Assembly of the United Nations of 10.12.1948

Environmental and Collective Rights: Differences between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous ngo s Involved with the United Nations Human Rights Council

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Maia Hallward ◽  
Charity Butcher ◽  
Jonathan Taylor Downs ◽  
Emily Cook
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Indigenous Organizations ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Environment Sustainability

Abstract Scholarship on human rights and environmental justice suggests that organizations vary in their messaging regarding outcomes related to environmental protection and sustainability, differences often found in the divide between the Global North and Global South. The literature also suggests that Indigenous organizations represent groups that traditionally focus on issues of sovereignty, while grappling with unique problems related to assimilation, cultural preservation, and oppression. This study utilizes empirical data gathered from 333 non-governmental organizations affiliated with the United Nations Human Rights Council to explore whether Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations, which share many aspects of their mission with one another at the transnational level, differ on issues related to environment sustainability and collective identity rights. Our results indicate that Indigenous organizations take a more holistic approach in addressing the relationship between humans and the natural world, centring marginalized perspectives through restorative justice and the needs of current and future generations.

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