Rethinking
Security
By David Kilgour, Secretary of State (Latin
America and Africa)
Published in Diplomat & International
Canada, January-February 1998
A decade
ago the word "security" in an
international context conjured up images
of nuclear missiles, warships, jet fighters
and other remnants of the cold war. Today
the term "human security" reflects
a more complex world view, and so draws
Canada into a more complicated relationship
with the rest of the world.
Threats to
human security now involve a wider range
of issues: environmental, criminal, terrorism,
poverty, corruption, health, governance
and human rights. No longer are these security
issues merely government-to-government matters.
Increasingly they require involvement of
many other actors from civil society.
It was not
that these issues didn’t exist during
the cold war. Rather they were overshadowed
by the prospect of global annihilation in
a nuclear conflagration. Today, with the
threat of conflict between the superpowers
lifted, more light has been shed on these
other threats to human security, some of
which cannot be solved by agreements between
governments alone.
Canada has
traditionally played an international peacekeeping
role. A more complex understanding of human
security has meant we need to develop new
concepts of peacekeeping, peacebuilding
and security maintenance. It is no longer
enough to station our troops between would-be
belligerents. We now have to be proactive
on such broader security concerns as communicable
diseases or narco-trafficking that know
no borders, and on land mines, terrorism
and small arms proliferation – issues
that affect civilians beyond our borders.
Increasingly, we must cooperate with both
state and non-state actors to build peace
by dealing with the root causes of conflict
and insecurity and not simply the symptoms.
When the
cold war ended, problems of armed conflict
did not go away. Genocide in Bosnia and
Rwanda showed the extent to which many conflicts
have domestic roots and increasingly involve
civilians. Some of these internal conflicts
spilled across international boundaries
and revealed the limited capacity of the
superpowers to contain them. While the cold
war was ending, many countries of the Americas
were achieving new peace processes aimed
at resolving age-old conflicts, and witnessing
the flourishing of democratically elected
governments. Canada has played a role in
easing many of these conflicts, whether
by sending peacekeepers to Bosnia, heading
a multinational force to Central Africa,
or by helping to establish more effective
policing in Haiti.
We are all
aware of Canada’s success in getting
122 countries to sign an agreement banning
the use of anti-personnel land mines. Millions
of these mines continue to kill and maim
civilians even in countries where military
conflict has long passed. We need to capitalize
on the momentum of the landmines process
to make sure the treaty enters into force
as quickly as possible, is universalized,
and is fully implemented through demining,
victim assistance and destruction of stockpiles.
The lessons we have learned from the landmines
process can be applied to other human security
issues, such as the proliferation of small
arms, peacebuilding, human rights and international
crime.
Building
human security, however, goes beyond questions
of limiting armaments and armed conflict.
There is increasing awareness that there
are economic factors in such diverse problems
as the proliferation of illegal narcotics
and the disparities of wealth and income
that contribute to social unrest. As such,
economic solutions must also play a role
in dealing with these threats to human security.
My own recent visit to Colombia impressed
on me the interrelated nature of such problems
as poverty, the illegal narcotics trade,
human rights, and democratic development.
These problems cannot be dealt with in isolation.
Internal
violence frequently occurs when there are
no mechanisms for peaceful resolution of
disputes within civil society. Stability
depends on the establishment of democracy
and good governance. This includes an effective
judiciary, and disciplined and professional
military and police. In our 1995 foreign
policy statement, Canada and the World,
we recognized the importance of projecting
abroad such Canadian values as democracy,
the rule of law, political and civil rights,
and participatory democracy. Personally,
I’m convinced these values are essential
to any concept of human security.
More and
more in a shrinking and interconnected global
community we face such human security concerns
as the spread of new diseases such as AIDS,
hepatitis C, and older ones such as malaria
or polio. Like ozone depletion and climate
change, such problems ignore international
boundaries.
Gone are
the days when "security" hinged
on relations between superpowers. Today,
Canada can work with new alliances of states
– both large and small – in promoting
human security – a concept that involves
an ever more complex array of actors.
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