Human
Security and Drugs
Notes for an address by
Hon. David Kilgour, Secretary of State (Latin
America and Africa)
and M.P. Edmonton Southeast
To the Montreal Chapter of the Canadian
Institute of International Affairs
McGill Faculty Club, Montreal, April 7,
1999
Today, I’m
committed to address the challenges to global
security in a changing world, review Canada’s
response, discuss the hemispheric dimension,
and focus on one issue in particular B the
fight against illicit drugs.
Changed
International Context
The last decade
has seen changes aplenty to the international
political, security and economic architecture.
The end of the Cold War, the emergence of
intra-state conflict and the onset of globalization
have diverted the world to uncharted paths
as we prepare to enter the new millennium.
The nature of threats to global security,
and to the security of individual citizens,
is certainly changing.
The challenges
posed by drugs, terrorism, environmental
degradation, human rights abuses and weapons
proliferation have become more acute. These
threats respect no borders. They do, however,
have a direct impact on us through the safety
of our streets, the air we breathe and the
water we drink: they threaten the very quality
of our daily lives. Our traditional guidebook
for global security is in need of an update.
These threats
do not lend themselves to easy solutions
or unilateral action. The unalterable fact
of life today is that we are more connected
than ever. We live in a world where oceans
of information is available at the click
of a mouse, where markets are becoming increasingly
more open and borders ever more porous.
Globalization
presents enormous opportunities. It also
challenges traditional ways of life and
exposes all of us, especially the most vulnerable,
to increasing economic and personal insecurity.
It is, however, not going to go away - the
wired global village is a fact of life and
here to stay.
Recently,
the international community has begun mobilizing
to address these issues and a range of subjects
that affect everyday lives. Promoting humanitarian
objectives B protection from abuse, reducing
risks of physical endangerment and improving
quality of life, should and are providing
a new impetus for global action.
We are coming
to see security increasingly in terms of
human, rather than state needs. Traditional
state-based security concerns have not been
rendered obsolete, but the security of the
state is being considered more and more
in terms of the stability, the protection
and the necessary endowments that it provides
to its citizens.
It is in one
sense, to re-phrase a famous statement by
the late John F. Kennedy, a question of
asking what our countries can do for us
as well as what we can do for our countries.
Canada’s
Response
In this context,
Canada has been reshaping our own foreign
policy priorities. We are increasingly more
occupied with issues that take individuals
and their communities, rather than territory
or governments, as their principal point
of reference. This human security-centred
approach is based on a number of elements:
First, engagement
not isolation: Canadians have long been
open to the world. This openness creates
both opportunities and vulnerabilities.
Second, human
security focusses on the dense web of inter-connections
between what were once deemed to be disparate
issues (e.g. human rights violations and
conflict early warning, infectious diseases
and mass migration, poverty and sustainable
development) and recognizes that they cannot
be effectively treated in isolation from
one another or by nations acting alone.
Cooperation at the local, regional and global
level is required to tackle these problems
effectively.
Third, advancing
fundamental standards of humanity: New and
updated international humanitarian and human
rights instruments will help to guarantee
protection for individuals. They serve to
expand the reach and scope of humanitarian
norms and set higher standards for global
behaviour. This was the objective behind
Canada’s strong support for the creation
of the International Criminal Court.
Fourth, promoting
peacebuilding: Human security can be enhanced
by strengthening the capacity of a society
to manage its differences without violence.
Initiatives in this area put a premium on
working with civil society to build and
strengthen democratic institutions and to
increase local capacity by training legislators,
jurists, public servants, or creating an
independent media – all with a view
to establishing sustainable climate for
and a culture of peace.
Fifth, pursuing
new, innovative partnerships and coalitions:
Canada is working in concert with other
like-minded countries to advance global
action on human security issues. Foreign
policy is no longer simply the preserve
of nation-states and diplomats. New players,
including non-governmental organizations,
business associations, trade unions, and
community-based groups have a growing and
deserved influence. They can play a positive
and productive role across a range of issues,
including the struggle against illicit drugs.
What this
approach speaks to is the need to deploy
powerful ideas rather than powerful weapons,
in most situations. So I’d refer you
here to a comment by Harvard’s Joseph
Nye in today’s National Post
that some of Canada’s ability to use
‘soft power’ is linked to our
ability to continue supporting organizations
like NATO. ‘Soft power’ normally
includes public diplomacy rather than backroom
bargaining and to use these and other effective
means to pursue human security. In the information
age, new communications tools should and
can be used effectively in the service of
our goals.
The Hemispheric
Dimension and Problem of Illicit Drugs
In practical
terms, all of these elements have resulted
in more focus and activism in Canadian foreign
policy on key human security problems. We
have brought this perspective to our engagement
in our own hemisphere.
The diversity
of topics on the agenda for hemispheric
integration has expanded significantly in
recent years and Canada’s level of
engagement with our partners in the Americas
has increased substantially. Last April,
in Santiago at the Second Summit of the
Americas, the democratically elected leaders
of the region agreed to an ambitious Plan
of Action that covering a range of important
and pressing priorities - education, democratic
development and human rights, economic integration
and the eradication of poverty and discrimination.
Hemispheric
security concerns have an increasingly human
dimension and it is natural that Canada
should be showing leadership on these issues
in the Americas. Strong regional support
for efforts to ban anti-personnel mines
vividly illustrates the human security agenda
in action.
Thirty-three
member states of the OAS have signed the
Convention banning the production, distribution
and stock-piling of anti-personnel land-mines
that resulted from what we should all be
proud to call the Ottawa Process.
Concrete efforts
are under way to make the objectives of
the Convention a reality in our own neighbourhood.
Central American countries have made a firm
commitment to eradicate landmines by the
year 2000 and Canada and Mexico are working
together in this area. In January, we organized
a regional landmines conference aimed at
taking stock and redoubling regional efforts.
We were very pleased to have the active
participation of civil society. The partnership
that led to the Ottawa Convention is indispensable
in realizing its goals.
The proliferation
of small arms, like landmines, is a global
security problem but one with an undeniable
regional dimension. The proliferation of
light, cheap weapons C the instrument of
choice of terrorists, drug lords and criminals
C is having a devastating impact on our
societies. And it is the most vulnerable
in our societies who suffer most.
Here too we
are making some progress. Last year, OAS
member states signed the Convention Against
the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking
in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and
Other Related Material. The first of its
kind in the world, it targets the illegal
trade in firearms through more effective
controls and will strengthen our capacity
to take collective action against crime
and violence in the Americas C a very real
threat to ordinary people.
We need to
go further to address other aspects through
practical approaches tailored to real problems
on the ground: disarming and reintegrating
child soldiers into stable societies; taking
weapons out of circulation in area that
are saturated with them; and retraining
and re-equipping people in these societies
so that they can lead peaceful and productive
lives.
A collective
challenge for us is to promote greater social
equity while pursuing economic reform and
sustainable growth. All of our citizens,
especially women, children, the disabled
and our indigenous peoples, must be able
to live in societies that reflect their
interests, satisfy their legitimate aspirations
and guarantee real participation in and
access to the political, economic and social
life of our countries.
Stable and
open societies provide a firm foundation
for enhancing human security. Hemispheric
leaders affirmed this at the Santiago Summit
with their emphasis on democracy, justice
and human rights.
In this context,
Prime Minister Chrétien also announced at
Santiago that Canada would be convening
a Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue Group
on Drugs to look at the broader impact of
the use of and traffic in illicit drugs.
Foreign
Ministers’ Dialogue on Drugs
This initiative
was welcomed by the other Prime Ministers
and Presidents and in the months following
the announcement Minister Axworthy, myself
and officials at the Department of Foreign
Affairs and International Trade worked hard
to develop our thinking on the range of
issues the Group would consider and a process
for organizing its activities.
In the development
of the Drug Group, it has been my privilege
and pleasure to travel to a number of capitals
in the hemisphere. I have been able to exchange
views first hand with our partners as to
how we could best marshal our collective
intellect and will to produce new ideas
for cooperative action in areas outside
the traditional areas of enforcement and
interdiction.
I have been
much encouraged by the very positive and
enthusiastic reception the Drug Group has
received throughout the hemisphere and with
the range of interesting ideas and suggestions
for issues it could consider and actions
it could undertake.
Many of these
ideas, along with a series of proposals
brought forward by Canada, were discussed
in detail by experts from the hemisphere
at a meeting which I had the pleasure open
in San José, Costa Rica ten days ago. The
results of this conference will form part
of the basis for the agenda that will be
considered by the Foreign Ministers themselves
in Guatemala City in June when they hold
the first formal meeting of the Dialogue
Group on the margins of the OAS General
Assembly.
The attention
that Foreign Ministers will personally give
to the drug issue serves to demonstrate
that in this area, and as in so many other
areas of the human security agenda, we are
not just going about business as usual.
None of us
can afford to be complacent: we must to
do all in our power to reverse the trend
and free our societies from the scourge
of illicit drugs, a major human security
challenge for the governments and peoples
of the hemisphere.
It is a problem
that affects us all: from the street children
whose lives are destroyed by sniffing glue
day after day, to citizens whose taxes are
raised to pay for policing of trafficking
routes, and states whose relations are made
even more complicated by the impact of the
drug traffic on international politics.
Let me bring it closer to home, but not
too close. I’m informed that in the
first 6 months of last year, fully 240 residents
of Vancouver alone died of drug overdoses.
In many ways,
it is a quintessential human security challenge:
multifaceted, transnational, superficially
attractive, ingeniously adaptive but brutally
destructive. As such, it calls for responses
that are creative, multidimensional, co-operative
and effective. To some it is almost a poster
girl or boy of the human security agenda.
Much is already
being done. Many governments in the America
have national drug strategies that include
efforts to reduce demand through educational
and health programs, to reduce supplies
through eradication or alternative development,
and to control trafficking through interdiction,
law enforcement and measures to counter
money laundering.
Non-governmental
organizations also play a major role through,
for example, specialized research to guide
public health interventions or through community
development projects.
The Inter-American
Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) fosters
co-operation among states in the Americas.
Various United Nation fora also foster the
development of multilateral approaches to
this problem and last year’s Special
Session of the United Nations General Assembly
on drugs and drug related issues had its
genesis as an initiative proposed by Mexican
President Zedillo.
We believe
that more can and must be done to counter
the threat, and to address its full impact
on human security. Failure to advance in
our common fight against illicit drugs will
undermine other objectives such as the effective
promotion of human rights and democratic
consolidation.
That is why
Canada launched the Drug Group and why I
am committed to doing my best to see it
flourish and make a truly substantial contribution
to progress on this vital issue.
Conclusion
Our changing
world is forcing us to redefine traditional
notions of security. Increasingly, the security
challenges we face and our motives for action
C global, regional or local C are based
on the security of the individual. Canada
is responding, and I have highlighted the
hemispheric dimension of our efforts, especially
the challenges posed by illicit drugs.
Over the next
few years, Canada will host a series of
hemispheric events ending with the next
Hemispheric Summit. We are committed not
only to strengthening our links with the
hemisphere, but to help build a stronger,
healthier, better educated and safer community
in the Americas and in so doing to advance
human security in the region.
Canada wants
to establish sound partnerships, based on
mutual respect and true cooperation which
will contribute to better lives for all
of the citizens of the hemisphere. I think
we are well equipped to play a leadership
role in promoting this objective and we
intend to continue our efforts to do so.
Thank you.
Merci beaucoup, gracias.
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