Human Rights and Human Security

Dr. Bertrand Ramcharan writes a very provocative short policy paper on Human Rights and Human Security. Legal scholars and lawyers are very aware (in different levels) of human rights as a discipline of law; and many international security scholars and development economists are quite knowledgeable about human security discourse. This essay shows an interesting intertwining:

Human Rights Define Human Security

To be secure is to be safe, protected. Security is a secure condition or feeling1. It is respectfully submitted that international human rights norms define the meaning of human security. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of the Discrimination Against Women, the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families are all meant to make human beings secure in freedom, in dignity, with equality and the protection of human rights.

It was a major breakthrough of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to provide basic guarantees regarding food, health, education, housing, protection of the family, democracy, participation, the rule of law, and protection against enslavement, torture, cruel or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. These seminal provisions were amplified in the subsequent conventions and they have a simple rationale: these human rights and fundamental freedoms must be respected, assured, and protected, if the individual human being is to be secure, to develop to the fullness of his or her personality, and to breathe the air of liberty.

For the full article, you may download the paper.