Human Security

The nature of violent conflicts has changed. Instead of inter-state conflicts, internal conflicts have proliferated. Often, the whole civil society is involved in these conflicts. The real threats to security are included in the broader concept of Human Security. Human security consists of various dimensions: economic, political, social and personal as well as environmental security.

The idea of human security was put forward already in the constitutive meeting of the UN. The emergence of the so called new wars in the early 1990’s revived the idea of human security as the need for securing the lives of individuals grew stronger in these wars than the preservation of state security. The concept of “Human Security” was first mentioned in the UNDP’s Human Development Report in 1994.

The core in human security thinking is the individual. Human security adds to the older concepts of security by focusing on the individual who is to be protected from the threat of the use of violence and the so called new threats such diseases and environmental disasters. Human security can not only be promoted by protecting the individuals by state policies, but also by empowering them to participate in the reconstruction and peace-building of and in their own societies.

Human security can be defined in broad and narrow terms. The broad definition consists of the concepts of “freedom from fear”, “freedom from want” and “freedom to live in dignity”, which consider the use of violence, hunger and the lack of democratic governance, among others, as threats to human security. The broad approach to human security is promoted in particular by the United Nations. The narrow definition focuses instead solely on the “freedom from fear” and regards the use of violence that creates a threat to the very vital right of an individual – the right to live. For instance Canada has adopted the narrow definition in its foreign policy. These concepts have not yet been unanimously agreed within the academic community.

The promotion of human security is the core concept in KATU’s activities. KATU has organised a few seminars on its use in the Finnish and European Union’s foreign policies. In addition, KATU has actively raised awareness of the proposals of the Human Security Study Group led by Professor Mary Kaldor from the London School of Economics and Politics on how to operationalise the human security concept in crisis management and peace-building.

KATU has recently published a book about human security that is written in English. You can read it here: