ABSTRACT
Although still limited by the virtual sanctity of the cornerstone of the present international system, national sovereignty, international standards and goals set by the United Nations serve to demonstrate the potential of institutional and legal approaches to human security. An example most relevant to our inquiry is the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. While recognized as an important tool to be used in the construction of a gender-equal human security system, this resolution is still, this article asserts, caught in the ‘strong militarist and patriarchal embrace of the Security Council’, a creature of the international state system. Of the three conceptual foundations of the resolution, participation, protection and prevention, protection of women in armed conflict, more readily acceptable to the patriarchal mindset, has received some of the council’s attention, relegating the other two to the margins of consideration in the relatively few efforts to implement the resolution. This history serves to strengthen our argument that comprehensive human security cannot be realized within the patriarchal structures of the state system. Yet this is the system in which we must launch transition strategies and actions toward the requisite system change. So we must inquire into the ways in which our efforts can contribute toward that change, the potential transformation which would provide the conditions for the realization of all the fundamental elements of comprehensive human security.
