ABSTRACT
Human security has made an important—but often side-lined and contested—intervention into the evolving security studies agenda. It has also gained some traction as a policy movement for those state and non-state actors that advocate a more human-centred foreign policy and greater attention to the human impacts of insecurity. This chapter explores the emergence of human security and the key debates that characterize the field. As a non-traditional security movement, the starting point of human security scholarship was to challenge traditional conceptions of international security which privilege a military, state-centric “national security” model. A further aspect of the critical challenge to human security arises from its apparent liberal orientation. Human security has always been both interdisciplinary and problem-centred—addressing challenges such as human trafficking, human protection in times of armed conflict, and preventable disease—and so human security has potential as a mobilizing concept to address many contemporary pressing challenges.
