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Sustainable Health for All? The Tension Between Human Security and the Right to Health Care
Full text linkIn the current global environmental crisis medical aid and disaster relief is given by the UN and its branches, by governments and by NGOs, who regard it as their duty to address large-scale humanitarian catastrophes. The duty to give medical aid rests on traditional interpretations of health security and on the bioethical imperatives to relieve suffering and to save lives. However, those principles are not easily reconciled in the current situation of global environmental change and the threats it poses to human security. The global demand for health care has already outpaced resources in many regions, and those resources are likely to decline further. An ethic based on more comprehensive concepts of human security can lessen the contradictions between ethical priorities because it takes into account environmental security. However, that approach leads to clashes with common interpretations of human rights, including the so-called right to health care. The argument presented in this paper states that, under the imperative of ensuring the survival for humanity in acceptable and sustainable ways, the latest generation of human rights pertaining to health care and environmental quality have become ungrantable. While this does not render them negligible, it does necessitate a new approach to global development aid and health security, with severe consequences for individual autonomy
Time for Decarbonization of Conservation and Development Projects? The Political Ecology of Carbon Projects
Full text linkThe globe's first carbon projects were designed and implemented approximately 20 years ago following scientific insights that emissions of greenhouse gases needed to be mitigated. Visible in some of these early projects were the important aspects of social governance and local benefit sharing. The projects promised to be a panacea to environmental, social and economic problems in remote rural areas of developing countries. However, it took another decade before a wave of hundreds of carbon projects were launched. Many of the projects were offered under the mechanism of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, plus the role of conservation, sustainable forest management and carbon enhancement), as well as under a variety of voluntary schemes and national programs, public-private partnerships, and forestry-based investment initiatives. As decision-makers prepare the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic Change in Paris (COP21), Earthscan has released a book entitled `Carbon conflicts and forest landscapes in Africa', edited by Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones. According to the editors, the focus of the book is on what happens on the ground when carbon forestry projects arrive, what types of projects work, and, equally important, what doesn’t work
A Review of "The Politics of Sustainability: Philosophical Perspectives"
Full text linkConcerns about sustainable development are not a recent phenomenon. Societal problem-solving efforts within this realm have focused on concrete problems such as the preservation of fisheries, forests and national reserves. 'The Politics of Sustainability' has been discussed extensively in literature, particularly after the publication of the Brundtland Commission's 'Our Common Future' report in 1987 [1] emphasizing inter-generational responsibilities involving economic, environmental and social aspects. Among other areas, the authors of the report highlighted the challenge of global climate change resulting from, amongst other things, unsustainable patterns of consumption. 'The Politics of Sustainability: Philosophical Perspectives', edited by Dieter Birnhacher and May Thorseth, brings a new angle into the discussion of the politics of sustainable development: ethical considerations
Educational Pathways to Remote Employment in Isolated Communities
Full text linkThose who live in isolated communities often lack reliable, skilled employment opportunities, which fundamentally undermines their human security. For individuals who wish to remain in their isolated communities for family, religious, philosophical or other reasons, their attachment to their communities creates a disincentive for higher education. This promotes low educational achievement, which in turn results in low socioeconomic status, lack of social mobility, and a generational cycle of poverty. The human misery that results from such a feedback loop is observed in isolated communities throughout North America, including aboriginal communities in Canada. Fortunately, maturation of information and communication technologies now offers individuals the potential to gain high-skilled employment while living in an isolated community, using both (i) virtual work/remote work and (ii) remote training and education. To examine that potential, this study: 1) categorizes high-skill careers that demand a higher education and are widely viable for remote work, 2) examines options for obtaining the required education remotely, and 3) performs an economic analysis of investing in remote education, quantifying the results in return on investment. The results show that the Internet has now opened up the possibility of both remote education and remote work. Though the investment in college education is significant, there are loans available and the return on investment is generally far higher than the interest rate on the loans. The results identified several particularly promising majors and dozens of high-income careers. The ability to both obtain an education and employment remotely offers the potential to lift many people living in isolated communities out of poverty, reduce inequality overall, and provide those living in isolated communities with viable means of employment security, which not only allows personal sustainability, but also the potential for personal growth
Sustainability of Fiscal Policy in Democracies and Autocracies
Full text linkThis paper tries to identify the fiscal sustainability record of democratically and autocratically governed countries by applying various performance indicators (credit worthiness, payment defaults, national debt, foreign assets) and also to clarify what effect the characteristics of a regime have on consolidation efforts in a country. The study identifies two key findings. While in the past, democracies have clearly found it easier to preserve their credit standing and solvency and to avoid government bankruptcy, a similar advantage can no longer be detected for democracies in terms of reducing national debt and foreign debts. Why democracies, in spite of their arrangements with a sensitivity for the public good and for due process, are finding it so difficult to avoid shifting their debts to future generations, to undertake cutback measures and to provide sufficient financial foresight, can in principle be interpreted as the other side of the coin, namely highly presence-oriented interests boosted even further through the short "democracy-specific time horizon"
Redefining Human Security for Vulnerable Migrants in East Asia
Full text linkThis article proposes human security as an analytical framework to understand the current trends of irregular migration (both forced and unauthorised) in East Asia and revisits the seven pillars of human security defined in the 1994 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It explains how the concepts of human security are parallel to those prescribed in international human rights conventions but different in terms of the attitude towards states. Human security does not directly challenge state authority and adds a sense of urgency and moral authority that requires extra-legal measures by the states. The author argues that human security is the securitisation of human rights and is a better framework and policy discourse than human rights to engage with state and non-state actors, especially in East Asia where political leaders are more receptive to the former idea. The study draws examples from stateless Rohingyas, undocumented sex workers in Thailand and Singapore, trafficked brides from Vietnam and Cambodia, and smuggled North Korean refugees in China to demonstrate the nexus between human security and irregular migration
Editorial for Journal of Human Security Volume 11
Full text linkThis editorial marks the beginning of the journal's eleventh year since its inception as the Australasian Journal of Human Security. As a sample from an extremely tumultuous era in human history, this time span has consistently provided an abundance of human security issues for me to comment on. Yet, for the first time since that fateful day in September of 2001, I feel that the world has arrived at another historical turning point. I am referring to the attack on the Paris office of the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo on January 7 and the events immediately following it
A Review of 'Humanitarian Intervention and Legitimacy Wars: Seeking Peace and Justice in the 21st Century'
Full text linkIn his book Humanitarian Intervention and Legitimacy Wars: Seeking Peace and Justice in the 21st Century, Richard Falk argues that, with the growing prevalence of soft power, historical lessons of asymmetric warfare and legitimacy wars must be taken into account. Falk rejects the realist notion that the state is the only rational actor, offering a more constructivist approach that focuses on the norms, culture and morality of the international community. He asserts that humanitarian intervention is on the decline, and legitimacy wars are increasing. Much of this legitimacy is based on international law and its relevance in the international community
Building Disaster Resilience: Steps toward Sustainability
Full text linkDisaster losses continue to escalate globally and in many regions human losses (death, injury, permanent displacement) often exceed the economic toll. Current disaster policies are reactive with a short-term focus―respond and rebuild as quickly as possible and in the same way after the event. Such policies ignore the longer-term approach of building disaster-resilient communities, in which investments made now show financial and social returns later by reducing the impact of disasters. This article provides a vision for resilient nations in 2030 based on three recent policy reports. It highlights the necessary steps to wards achieving sustainability using the lens of disaster resilience as the pathway towards strengthening communities' ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, respond to, and recover from present and future disasters
Human Security in World Affairs: A Pedagogical, Multi-disciplinary Approach
Full text linkAlexander and Sabina Lautensach (editors) propose that their book is primarily intended for students and for teaching, and that a pedagogical approach was prioritised rather than a reproduction in the standard format of an academic monograph (p. XVII). Throughout, they aim for a diverse, multi/trans-disciplinary approach in content and presentation by contributors with potential student outcomes focused on flexibility and a broad spectrum knowledge and understanding of human security. To these ends they have been very successful. This hefty tome, almost encyclopaedic in its scope and depth, needs to be approached by students in a certain way. That is, students will benefit from some directed guidance regarding approach and methodology in order to successfully navigate through the many detailed concepts, theories and practicalities contained in the book. This is clearly provided in the preface where the authors spend quite some time outlining the rationale of the book in a simple and easy to understand way that will be particularly useful for students and other engaged readers