【Close】The relations and division of labor between the human concepts — human development, human rights, human security

‘Human' concepts play an important role in trying to order and humanize the world we live in today. They seek to make sure that human faces, human interests, are not absent from otherwise too abstracted discussions about, for instance, markets and the economy, intellectual property, sovereignty, the stratosphere, different kinds of crises, and other issues occupying global and local agendas. Putting the human upfront, these concepts favor integrated thinking and are expected to be catalysts for agreements and actions that leave no one behind.

Human concepts, however, do not have a common, single origin, but are the results of different political, economic and social processes. While universal in principle, each of them speaks to different epistemic
communities and traditions, matches different theories and values and brings along different tools, some of which usually contend for primacy in framing agendas and solutions. In other words, the concepts are inevitably partly overlapping and partly competitive.

It is thus not surprising to find sceptical takes about the relations between the human concepts. Human development reviews try to harmonize other concepts, but usually under their own hierarchy of ideas, which tends to narrow the scope of human security and, to a lesser degree, of human rights. Some human rights scholars express distrust about the implications of human security propositions for the international human rights regime. There has been deliberate sidelining of human rights in some human security narratives, which can lead to further mutual wariness. Therefore, much remains to be done in creating a coherent conceptual system that potentiates cooperation and draws benefits from overlaps and competition.

In his talk, Professor Gasper will review the relations and division of labor between the human concepts, specially between rights and security, highlighting the broad compatibility and complementarity in theory and practice.

<Presenter>
Prof. Dr. Des Gasper, professor of States, Societies and World Development, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam

<Discussant>
Oscar A. Gómez, Research Fellow, JICA Research Institute

Japan Student Association for Human Security Studies (JSAHSS)
Secretariat,
Hiromu Miyashita

E-mail：infoJSAHSS@gmail.com

This event has ended.