KASARINLAN: Call for Papers

Human Security in Conflict Situations (Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006)

In the last few years a powerful international political agenda has emerged that would include the idea of human security. The changing nature of violent conflict and intensifying globalization have increasingly put people—and not just states—at the centre of international affairs. As a result, the safety of the individual—that is, human security—has become both a new measure of global security and a new impetus for global action. This development obviously has major implications for both theory and policy. In theoretical terms, the concept of human security asks fundamental questions about the nature of international relations, about the links with traditional notions of national security, about the causes of conflicts, and helps to redefine human development. And in public policy, there have been significant efforts to promote greater human security including the Ottawa Convention on Anti-personnel Landmines and the Rome Treaty creating an International Criminal Court as well as national and regional initiatives.

As momentum gathers around the idea of human security, greater analytical clarity on the meaning of the term and its policy implications is needed. This special issue of Kasarinlan will examine key aspects of the new approach to security with particular reference to the problem of armed conflict in the Philippines while, at the same time, drawing on comparative insights from elsewhere. The focus will be two-fold. The first part will deal with the debates behind the need for a new approach to security, the conceptual background to the human security discourse, the seminal influence of the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report, an attempt to capture the post-Cold War peace dividend and redirect those resources towards the development agenda, and more recent shifts in the vision of human security for the twenty-first century.

The second part will analyze specific manifestations of the human security debate and their implications, especially in the Philippine context. Topics covered will include, but will not be limited to: the root causes of human insecurity; the proliferation of weaponry and armed conflict; conflict and state responses; the expansion of organized crime, drug trafficking, and the growth of private security forces; the nature and scope of transnational threats; the human costs of violent conflict; human security and human development, including human rights, environmental degradation, terrorism, transnational organized crime, gender-based violence, infectious diseases and natural disasters; human security as a complement to national security; local, regional and global initiatives to promote human security.

This issue of the journal will have three main sections: scholarly articles, shorter debate pieces, and reviews. There will be six refereed articles, selected for their relevance to the theoretical and empirical issues of the theme. The debate section will focus on the question: Could an agreement on respect for human rights and international humanitarian law forged between government and non-state actors promote human security?. The review section will contain reviews of books which are judged to have a particular importance for the concerns of the special issues as well as feature reviews which will focus on a particular debate.

Interested contributors can submit their articles directly to kasarinlan@up.edu.ph. The paper should at the least include: an abstract of between 250 and 300 words with keywords, a clear argument of the paper, theoretical background, and conclusion.