ABSTRACT
In the early 1990s human security (HS) appeared to be part of a major reform of the underlying philosophy, interests, material capacities and institutions of International Relations, particularly in a move towards consolidating a liberal peace (UNDP 1994: 24). It has drawn together an international range of actors and analysts in a common research project spanning a range of cultures and political ideologies (Ponzio 2005: 69). Yet by the 2000s, and from where we stand today, the associated international community of actors which had adopted this new version of security now seem to have turned it into an empty concept, paradoxically not redolent of a social contract, and international contract, responsibility towards others, intellectual and policy openness, or concerned with the very being and situation of individuals and communities caught up in violence. This apparent collapse of HS is far more important than the initial conservative complaints that it was simply too broad to be operationalised in the 1990s. The contestation of HS remains an ongoing debate.
