ABSTRACT
This chapter examines several major challenges to human security. It begins by exploring the concept and then turns to the challenge of poverty that many observers regard as the most pervasive threat to human security. Among poverty-related issues are economic development, foreign investment, and foreign aid, access to global markets, and global debt. Impoverished countries are especially vulnerable to a variety of other ills, including transnational crime that threatens personal safety, the global arms trade that fosters violence, and the complex issue of refugees and migrants. As you read this chapter, keep in mind that the dimensions of human security are closely related. For instance, the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS is both a cause and a consequence of poverty; poverty creates incentives for crime and corruption, while perpetuating the very poverty
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Human rights are so important a dimension of human security that we dedicated the previous chapter to the issue. There, we emphasized how the normative and legal climate is shifting to emphasize a “law of people” and the protection of basic political, social, and economic rights. There are other trends, too, that also pose real challenges to the wellbeing and survival of individuals and communities. Among these are issues
cient critical interest that it, too, merits its own chapter – Chapter 15.
