抄録
Nowadays, the European Union and Japan pursue the concept of human security with its stress on coping with the threats to human lives on global scale. Adopted in 1998 by Japan and in 2003 by the European Union human security concept provides much visibility, credibility and identity to both actors and allow them to define common security agenda.
It is therefore useful to study —admitting the human aspect of security— what differences and commonalities exist in the security policies of both actors and try to explore what can be done in order to diminish differences and strengthen commonalities that could foster Japan-EU security cooperation. In other words, the paper examines, firstly, the EU's security policy in the post-Cold War period; secondly, Japanese security policy in the same period; thirdly, Japan-EU cooperation in security sphere proceeding from the findings made previously (analysis of Japan's and EU's security policies); lastly, it distinguishes and focuses on the common points that can be developed in future as a core of the partnership in security sphere.
Inasmuch as the paper is not aimed at finding differences and similarities between the notions of “civilian power, ” “human security, ” and also widely used definition of “soft power, ” for the purpose of the present study it is sufficient to note that they do not contradict but rather complement each other. It should be also noted that the crises of the 1990s, in particular in the Balkans, brought about a new type of internal, complex crisis in which the international community had to cope with failed states. Traditional forms of peacekeeping as such did not provide adequate tools for handling the new challenges. Military presence could help to create a secure environment, but it could not re-build a society with its infrastructure, basic services and administration. Therefore, a coordinated civilian action had to be introduced as a way to alleviate human emergencies and stabilize situation in crisis areas. Such kind of civilian assistance from outside a crisis area is now referred to as non-military or civilian crisis management. Therefore, in the paper “non-military” refers to civilian actions aimed at stabilization of situation in crises, conflict areas.
