Multilateralism / Working Paper
Threats to human security: the need for action?
06/10/2005 By Luis Peral
Building a new consensus on what the current threats to international peace and security are, as the concept has been established in Article 39 of the UN Charter, is as necessary as it is difficult.
The 2005 World Summit on UN reform has taken steps towards this consensus which can be considered satisfactory, but there still remains a large degree of confusion regarding the meaning of the word ‘threat’ as a situation, category or context.
Only by clearing up this confusion, which to some extent is due to the priority given to the fight against terrorism in the last few years, can a new balance be achieved in the actions of the Security Council.
This new balance must reflect in particular the concerns expressed by States at the World Summit regarding the need to put an end to genocide and other serious and massive human rights violations.
The aim of this Working Paper is to define the outlines of a specific category of threats to peace, which could be named threats to human security.
This category emerges as the result of the intersection between the principle of the responsibility to protect and the concept of human security, both included in the World Summit Outcome Document.
However, it can only be considered as the expression of a new will on the part of States insofar as they, together with the relevant international organisations, create instruments of international action which are meant to confront situations where the existence of such a threat is identified.
Also, the responsibility for identifying threats to human security should not rest exclusively and discretionarily with the Security Council.
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Keywords
Multilateralism Security UNRelated publications
Bio author: Luis Peral
Luis Peral is PhD in Law, MA in Law of the European Union, MA in Law, BA in Political Sciences, with specialisation in International Relations (Universities Complutense and Carlos III of Madrid), and Diploma in English Law (University of Kent, Canterbury, UK). He has collaborated with FRIDE as Researcher and currently works as Director of the Conflict Prevention and Resolution programme at the Toledo International Centre for Peace. He also works at the Centre for Constitutional Studies of the Ministry of the Presidency under the Ramón y Cajal Research Programme of the Spanish Government, and is Senior Research Fellow at FRIDE.
