Talk:Mary Kaldor

http://student.cs.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0016104.html Maybe of interest...

She is also very much involved in the European Social Forum, and is present at most London meetings -- the LSE group composed of faculty & activists seek input on the ESF agenda. NB: one of the sessions I attended (chaired by Kaldor) dealt with whether the proposals put forward should be viewed as political or not...

Her father was a big time economist -- Nicholas Kaldor...

human security

There are two trends that explain the emergence of "human security" now pushed by Kaldor/Gittings/Held... and other LSE folks. These are:

1. Increasing abandonment of international law by the major powers (US & UK). While until recently appeals to international law or other bodies of law which were internationally recognized were the basis of the perceived protections for the individual, now these protections have been de facto sidelined. The US doesnt recognize most humanitarian law, the Geneva Conventions, conventions on torture, and it also doesnt recognize the ICJ -- in fact the US has opted out of this AND the ICJ has been conceived as a body that is open to massive manipulation.
2. human rights emerged as an element informing the formation of foreign policy in the 1970s (Kirsten Sellars in her Rise and Rise of Human rights documents the sorry saga of the introduction of "human rights") yet it was severely manipulated during the Reagan admin -- to the point that it was referred to derisively. The main powers have intermittently either made vacuous references to HR, used it arbitrarily when it suited their aims, or ignored it altogether. The current trend is to both ignore it and piss on it when there are references to it.

Since both the key legal and philosophical basis for the individual's from state power are under threat, there is suddenly an emergence of "new" concept that is aimed to supplant what was deemed to be the basis of individual rights/protection. "human security" even ties in nicely with the ruminations by Nathan Sharansky -- who also used the term "human security", i.e., expectation of security by the citizen of the neoimperial powers (US,UK,Israel) despite what those states may be doing around the globe. An interesting comparison could be made between the LSE "human security" and the one proposed by Nathan Sharansky and similar ilk.

An interesting topic for analysis: "human security" is a concept that doesnt interfere with the interests of state power... states would like to justify their actions on this basis, e.g., "anti-terror" laws would fit right in with guaranteeing "human security" to the denizens of empire.