Development of Human Security ‘Norm’ and Global Governance: How is a Norm-Complex Constructed in World Politics?

Norms and International Relations Theory

Abstract

More than a decade has passed since the concept of human security was coined by the UNDP's Human Development Report. This article attempts to illustrate how the emergent ‘norm’ of human security has been developed in discourse of various actors, and how it has been adopted in policies and practices of human security. Main questions are how human security was invented and elaborated as a new ‘norm’ by ‘norm entrepreneurs, ’ and what main characteristics of the human security ‘norm’ are and how such characteristics and prescription of the ‘norm’ appear in practice of global governance.
The first section of this article attempts to demonstrate human security as ‘norm-complex’ that consists of preexisting norms encompassing related issue-areas and other new norm elements. Human security is also a reconciliatory norm that amalgamates competing or contradicting norms under a common principle. Then it hypotheses detailed stages of norm creation: invention of an original norm, adaptation (remodeling) of presented norm by various interested and motivated actors, and then editing and publication of the norm by, for example, independent international commissions. Editor's role can be intrinsically important for selecting and combining relevant norms or in reconciling and amalgamating competing norms.
The human security ‘norm’ was invented by NGOs and UNDP who tried to advocate human-centered development at the beginning of the 1990s. It was actively introduced into Canadian and Japanese governments' policy slogans. In the process, Canadian government rewrote (remodeled) the ‘norm’ by targeting on an aspect of ‘freedom from fear’ in order to legitimize its recent international policies such as its advocacy against anti-personal landmines. Although the emergent norm of human security began to be accepted by many international organizations, NGOs, and governments, human security at the same time caused a serious concern that it challenges a constitutive norm of non-intervention or national security. Then the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Commission on Human Security took the initiative to edit the ‘norm’ so that it can more easily be accepted by various actors.
The article then describes particular patterns of global governance that emerges from the property of human security norm-complex. The first pattern is a public policy network that connects various actors of NGOs, firms and governments. The second distinctive pattern is international territorial administration in post conflict situations, which is based on hierarchical governance. Lastly a concept of ‘complex global governance’ that combines different modes of governance will be explored as an indispensable element of human security governance. Complex global governance needs a mechanism of ‘meta-governance, ’ which should draw more attention in future research.