ABSTRACT
Twenty years ago, Asian states signed the 1993 Bangkok Declaration, which reaffirmed their commitment to the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, yet, at the same time, reaffirmed sovereignty and non-interference, and a focus on economic development. Subsequently, the following year saw the publication of the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report. This report, titled ‘New Dimensions of Human Security’, outlined the concept of human security, which brought together ‘freedom from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’, and sought to make these two distinctions mutually reinforcing. Freedom from fear is the protection of civilians from aggression by others, whereas freedom from want is the opportunity to achieve an adequate standard of living. The report’s author, Mahbub ul Haq, identified seven threats to achieving human security, which can be grouped into ‘freedom from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’. In the first instance, freedom from fear includes community, personal and political security. Community security invokes the freedom from ethnic and sectarian violence, personal security refers to the freedom from physical violence, and political security indicates the enjoyment of basic human rights. In the second instance, freedom from want includes economic, environmental, food and health security. Economic security refers to the opportunity to achieve an adequate standard of living, whereas environmental security is the protection of people during, or from, natural or man-made disasters. Finally, food security specifies that people have access to basic food, and health security is the protection from diseases and unhealthy lifestyles (Ul Haq, 1994).
