Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction: Human Security and the Emergence of Body Counts
- 1 The Long Journey to the War on Terror
- 2 The Rising Violence: Writing the War 2006– 2007
- 3 The Beginning of the End of Sectarian Violence? Writing the War 2008– 2009
- 4 Iraq 2010– 2013
- 5 Iraq 2014– 2017: Obama and the Banality of Killing
- Epilogue: Iraq and Its Casualties Today
- References
- Index
Introduction: Human Security and the Emergence of Body Counts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction: Human Security and the Emergence of Body Counts
- 1 The Long Journey to the War on Terror
- 2 The Rising Violence: Writing the War 2006– 2007
- 3 The Beginning of the End of Sectarian Violence? Writing the War 2008– 2009
- 4 Iraq 2010– 2013
- 5 Iraq 2014– 2017: Obama and the Banality of Killing
- Epilogue: Iraq and Its Casualties Today
- References
- Index
Summary
In the 15th century, Renaissance mathematician and astronomer Nikolaus Copernicus formulated a model of the universe that put the sun, rather than the earth, at the centre of the solar system. That was a paradigm shift that led to a transformation in the way we view the universe. In a similar way, the ‘human security’ approach puts the individual, the citizen, the civilian, at the centre of understanding security, rather than the state and its borders.
The Commission on Human Security was established in January 2001, in response to the UN Secretary-General's call at the 2000 Millennium Summit for a world ‘free of want’ and ‘free of fear’. On 1 May 2003, co-chairs of the Commission on Human Security, Sadako Ogata and Amartya Sen, presented the Commission's Final Report, ‘Human Security Now’, to the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan (Commission on Human Security, 2003).
According to the United Nations Commission on Human Security (CHS), human security is
to protect the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfilment. Human security means protecting fundamental freedoms – freedoms that are the essence of life. It means protecting people from critical (severe) and pervasive (widespread) threats and situations. It means using processes that build on people's strengths and aspirations. It means creating political, social, environmental, economic, military and cultural systems that together give people the building blocks of survival, livelihood and dignity. (Human Security Unit Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs United Nations, 2003)
Overall, the definition proposed by the CHS reconceptualizes security by:
• moving away from traditional, state-centric conceptions of security that focused primarily on the safety of states from military aggression, to one that concentrates on the security of the individuals, their protection and empowerment;
• drawing attention to a multitude of threats that cut across different aspects of human life and thus highlighting the interface between security, development and human rights; and
• promoting a new integrated, coordinated and people-centred approach to advancing peace, security and development within and across nations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Body CountThe War on Terror and Civilian Deaths in Iraq, pp. 1 - 16Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2020