CRI393H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Human Security, Positive Element, Cultural Relativism
30 Mar 2019
School
Course
Professor
Human Rights and Security Lecture 9- Mobility & Refuge
• We looked at how cultural relativism- what is moral or real varies by cultural context?
This mode of combat may itself be subject to dangers such as allowing human rights
violations to reign over. We need to critically question this universality of human rights,
of what is good or normal.
• Today: going to look at how far we have to go to look at this difference, human life is
movement. The word animate, comes from the word spirit, soul, consciousness to
animate literally means to bring to life, specifically to the appearance of movement.
• To move is to live, to be human
• To migrate has a specific meaning-→ movement from one place to another, idea of
migration relates to geo-spacial movement. Not just migration across nation state
boarders to migrate is often to move away from one’s home and sense of belonging
more or less willingly, home is seen as a site of security. Migration therefore produces a
sense of insecurity, not just for migrants but also inhabitants of the migrating country.
• Human security:
- International interventions may be justified in the name of human rights and
security
- In the name of securing humans in a dangerous world
- Official definition UN trust fund: the right of all people to live in freedom and
dignity, free from poverty and despair (the recognition that) all individuals, in
particular vulnerable people are entitled to freedom from fear and freedom from
want, with an equal opportunity to enjoy all their rights and fully develop their
human potential.
- Budget comes from both public and private sponsors, biggest sponsor government
of Japan.
- The trust fund notes: rights of all people to live free from poverty, and equal
opportunity. Echoes of president Roosevelt’s freedoms. Positive element of human
freedom goes beyond to fully develop one’s potential, something beyond just
survival, you should have the right to thrive. It emphasizes that these threats are not
only to those in extreme poverty.
- Vastly expands what human insecurity can be, non-military threats
• Human security:
- Includes military and non military threats
1) Chronic threats i.e. hunger, disease, repression
2) Sudden and hurtful disruption in the pattern of daily life.
- Tries to get past militarized concept of security
2
- The theory of human security dates back 1970s when cold war was still going strong,
there was also this idea that the international community had the responsibility to
eliminate broad social conditions before the resulted in armed conflict
- There was a pronounced change in the 20th century, turn to looking at human
security from conventional war to more into transnational forces of instability
economic, ecological, political fields.
- Insecurity has been come to be re-thought as bi-lateral agreements
- This historical moment in which human security arose is in conjunction with R2P,
transformed how people think about sovereignty. Became to transform idea of
security itself demanding duty to produce and preserve all humans living the life of
freedom and dignity.
• Migration:
- Oldest forms of human activity is migration-movement of populations
- Communal life has also involved conflict i.e. land
- Seeking of refuge is as old as history itself
- The historical development of the nation state form, have to examine how migration
presents challenges to governance and security
- Different types of migration: economic migration, refugees seeking asylum
- Migrations present intractable set of international challenges for both rights and
security
- Alice Edwards tries to consider human rights through refugees- she is a proponent
that the human rights security framework helps us consider rights towards refugees.
• Video: UN high commission for refugees: designed to not only raise consciousness but
also invoke emotional response.
• Refuge and “force displacement”
- The sheer number of displaced persons has led to the development of a
underground economy, human traffickers promising spaces on boats.
- As of June 2018: some are officially classed as refugees, this means that they have
been recognized as having the right to have rights. Others have to apply for refugee
status known as “asylum seekers”- in a limbo, managed to land in a space but have
to apply to remain in residence.
- The largest group is people forcibly displaced from their homes, they are in a
different limbo “IDP”- internally displaced persons, have to leave home due to
hardships, within their boarders, “on the run at home”, unable to reach a place of
refuge.
- There is a normalization of pushing back now
• Non-refoulement
- Return to persecutor, expelling them after they have crossed.
- No contracting state shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to
the frontiers of toerriotiries where his life or freedom would be threatned, on
account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of particular social group or
political opinion
Document Summary
This mode of combat may itself be subject to dangers such as allowing human rights violations to reign over. We need to critically question this universality of human rights, of what is good or normal: today: going to look at how far we have to go to look at this difference, human life is movement. Not just migration across nation state boarders to migrate is often to move away from one"s home and sense of belonging more or less willingly, home is seen as a site of security. Migration therefore produces a sense of insecurity, not just for migrants but also inhabitants of the migrating country: human security: International interventions may be justified in the name of human rights and security. In the name of securing humans in a dangerous world. Budget comes from both public and private sponsors, biggest sponsor government of japan. The trust fund notes: rights of all people to live free from poverty, and equal opportunity.
