Human Security: A Potential for Cooperation in the EU and East Asia

Abstract

This paper explores the differing levels of recognition of human security as an analytical concept as well as a foreign policy strategy in the EU and East Asia. The term emphasizes additional protection and expanded freedoms for individuals: the freedom from want, the freedom from fear, and the freedom to take action on one’s own behalf. The idea of combining security and human rights can be construed as a ‘narrow version’ of human security, often equated with the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), or a so-called ‘broad’ approach as defined by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In the EU, human security as a policy concept is currently interpreted as an umbrella term, highlighting concerns about physical integrity and equal participation rather than economic development, reflecting the EU’s recent turn towards post-conflict reconstruction and humanitarian assistance missions. In contrast, many governments in East Asia have traditionally asserted security concepts safeguarding internal and external sovereignty, thereby limiting human security claims favouring the individual and its wants. Instead of human security, the term ‘non-traditional security concerns’, which includes air pollution, food safety, cyber security, and natural disaster relief, is often used in East Asia. As a consequence, a considerable potential for pragmatic cooperation between East Asia and the EU is apparent, as long as this cooperation remains functionally limited and de-politicized with regard to sovereignty concerns.