How Is Human Security Different from Human Rights? What Are the Implications of the Prominence of the Concept of Human Security for the Foreign Policy of States and Understandings of International Order and Justice?

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How is human security different from human rights? What are the implications of the prominence of the concept of human security for the foreign policy of states and understandings of international order and justice? Human security has become a buzzword in the IR community. While the concept has been lead by similar ideas laid down in reports of global commissions in the seventies and eighties - the Brandt Commission, the Brundtland Commission and the Commission on Global Governance – ‘human security’ as a new theory was created and shaped by Mahbub ul Haq in the 1994 UNDP Development Report. “(Human security) is, in essence, an effort to construct a global society where the safety of the individual is at the centre of the international priorities and a motivating force for international action; where international human rights standards and the rule of law are advanced and woven into a coherent web protecting the individual; where those who violate these standards are held fully accountable; and where our global, regional and bilateral institutions – present and future – are built and equipped to enhance and enforce these standards.”1 As Roland Paris has pointed out, “human security can be understood in different ways: as an academic problem, as a political agenda or campaign, as a ‘rallying cry’ uniting ad-hoc or more sustained coalitions of States on single issues, as a research category or as a change of paradigm in security studies.”2 Two sets of definitions can be distinguished: academic analysis on the one hand and governmental policy papers on the other hand. Academic definitions of human security range from a limited number of threats to be addressed by human security to a broad understanding, which also covers psychological and emotional aspects of security, while Governmental sources, emphasise on policy- oriented and operational

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