8-9 January 2007
Marina Mandarin, Singapore

The Inaugural Meeting of the Consortium of Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia (NTS-Asia) on the 8 th to 9 th of January 2007 was a milestone in the progress of NTS studies. The meeting not only officially launched the Consortium but also brought together its regional network members - comprising 14 research institutes and think tanks from across Asia - to discuss current NTS challenges facing the region, and possible policy responses to address these problems.

Former Thai Foreign Minister and Member of the International Human Security Commission, Dr. Surin Pitsuwan , presented a highly motivating keynote address, which was then followed by speeches from the Ford Regional Representative, Prof. Andrew Watson; Dean of RSIS, Amb. Barry Desker ; and the NTS-Asia Secretary General, Prof. Amitav Acharya.

Representatives from all 14 Consortium member institutes took turns in presenting major NTS concerns affecting their regions and proposed measures to address the challenges. Sessions of these presentations were based on Asian sub regions.

South Asia

• Major General ANM Muniruzamman, Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies
• Dr Meenakshi Gopinath, Women In Security, Conflict Management and Peace, India
• Prof Peter DeSouza, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, India
• Dr Chowdhury Abrar, Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit, Bangladesh
• Prof Syed Rifaat Hussain, Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Sri Lanka

North East Asia

• Prof Han Feng, Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
• Dr Ahn Se Hyun, Ilmin International Relations Institute, Korea University
• Mr Bui Truong Giang, Center for International Security and Strategic Studies, Institute of World Economics and Politics (IWEP), Vietnam
• Assoc Prof Li Yingtao, Beijing Foreign Studies University (representing IWEP China)
• Assoc Prof James Tang, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hongkong

South East Asia

• Dr Edy Prasetyono, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Indonesia
• Prof Carolina Hernandez, Institute for Strategic and Development Studies
• Mr Len Garces, The Worldfish Center, Malaysia
• Dr Mely Caballero-Anthony, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore

Discussions also focused on advancing the Consortium's activities, in particular its annual convention, regional workshops, research fellowship programme and curriculum development. A great source of ideas had been generated in improving the activities as well as in furthering their dissemination of awareness on NTS issues to the wider public.

All in all, members of the Consortium left the meeting feeling a greater sense of achievement having forged a community committed to addressing non-traditional security issues in the region.

To view pictures from the meeting, click here.

Keynote address at the Inaugural Meeting of the
Consortium of Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia
 
Human Security and Non-Traditional Security
by Dr. Surin Pitsuwan

Amb. Barry Desker,
Prof. Amitav Acharya,
Mr Andrew Watson of the Ford Foundation,
Distinguished Participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is indeed an honor and a pleasure to join you all this morning for this inaugural meeting of the Consortium on Non Traditional Threats for the Asia-Pacific Region. As the only ASEAN member of the Commission on Human Security, I am indeed gratified to see some basic definitions, findings and recommendations of the Commission's Report, Human Security Now, is being taken up at this foremost institution of research and learning on security and international studies, the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).

Permit me first to congratulate Amb. Barry Desker for his successful stewardship of this world recognized center of academic excellence. I also would like to gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Prof. Amitav Acharya for his intellectual contributions and boundless enthusiasm in the pursuit of ASEAN's own understanding of our current threats and future challenges in all their dimensions. Together, both of you, gentlemen, have put us on notice that there are, over the academic horizon, issues that we in Asia and the Pacific should try to comprehend and define for our own common security and prosperity. Your leadership in this field is very much inspiring and appreciated.

When we talk about non-traditional threats, we seem to assume that these threats are new, defy any categorization, unable to fit into any traditional paradigm of threats that have been accepted so far. They are a new set of security challenges that needs new definitions, new narratives and new responses from our security apparatus.

We are talking about the kind of threats that eludes state security apparatus traditionally structured. Problems like the serious degradation of the environment, pandemic diseases, human trafficking, illicit drugs, transnational crimes, calamities as consequences of natural disasters, etc.By definition, these threats are "diverse, unexpected in the main, and multifaceted," as Javier Solana, the EU Commissioner for Foreign Policy, put it.

The traditional security apparatus has been established to defend the security defined by the state. It is based on the principle of state sovereignty established since he Congress of Westphalia in 1648. The state assumes the sole function of security on behalf of its citizens. The state monopolizes the use of force. The state becomes sacred unto itself and the people often times turn out to be serving the state to defend its security rather than the other way around.

But, are non-traditional threats really "non-traditional" from the perspective of modern political theory, the Social Contract theory, which is the basis for modern state and civil government ?

Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau would argue that if modern state's security apparatus fails to provide safety and security to its citizens, but it emphasizes on its own security, then it has not fulfilled the original objective of men and women coming into civil society in the first place. Life in the state of nature, Hobbes suggests, is "rash, nasty, brutish and short." Locke theorizes that the fruits of human labor would be exposed to danger and the enjoyment of them by men and women prior to the establishment of civil society would be obstructed and difficult. Rousseau, on the other hand, sees human life outside the social contract as troublesome, exposed to danger and easily succumbed to inequality and bondage. "Man was born free but everywhere he is in chain," he said. In sum, according to the Social Contract theorists, the safety and security of the human persons are the foremost objective of the establishment of the state or civil government in the first place.

The issue before us now is whether state security is adequate to extend protection to "human security" in the faces of these "diverse, unexpected and multifaceted" threats ? Obviously, the assumption that is at the basis of our undertaking here today is that it is not. We are no longer talking about defending state territory, its institutions, its honor, its security or its interests. We are now concerned about the security of the people inside the state boundaries whose welfare is not served or sometimes ignored or even threatened by the state authorities themselves.

The concept of "failing or failed state" is gaining currency in the midst of internal conflicts and sectarian or tribal violence, causing millions of life loss, devastating many hundreds of millions more and destabilizing the entire international system. If we are not able to manage this situation, it will not only be a problem of "failing or failed state," its sinister consequences would lead to "failed international community."

Thus, what the Consortium is doing now and intending to pursue together in the future is a very critical undertaking on behalf of the world community. You have cast your intellectual network only to cover the Asia-Pacific region, but the implication is indeed reaching far beyond.

These non-traditional threats, or personally I would prefer to call them the "original threats" to civil society as originally conceived, would not be contained or resolved by any state or even group of stats alone. By definition, they respect no borders, submit to no one set of rules and regulations, and obey no single authority. We must pool our resources, combine our efforts and share our sovereignty in order to secure ourselves from these threats.

But that is exactly where the problem is now. New states like ours in this region, ASEAN in particular, are still insecure of their own control of our internal matters. We face regional, tribal, racial and economic differences and disparities, so much so that we become jealous of our own sovereignty. We do not trust other states or external institutions to come inside our borders and provide or even suggest solutions to our domestic problems. We appeal to the sacred principle of state sovereignty to fend of external involvement in our own affairs, even if when the situation is grave and threatening our citizens' welfare and livelihood. We tend to hide behind the concept of state sovereignty while violence rages on inside our territories affecting un-tolled number of lives, wounded, maimed and lost, and causing unimaginable scale of human suffering.

Take Rwanda of 1994, Kosovo of 1998 and Darfur, Sudan, shaking our conscience, unfolding in front of our eyes now, as cases in point.

You would remember the sad saga of Rwanda on the shore of the Great Lake in Africa. Unfortunate political circumstances conspired to put millions of people in harm's way in a tribal conflicts. As tension rose, killings continued and tragic fate of a whole tribal group was put under tremendous risk of ethnic cleansing. Much as the cries for help echoed out of the killing fields there, the international community stood by idly with out much action. The UN Security Council was, according to later account, mired in petty conflicts of interests of their own. We all stood by and did nothing until 3 million people perished. A darkest chapter in human history.

In 1998 we faced a similar challenge in Kosovo. We were all disgusted by the senselessly avoidable loss of lives in another ethnic strife in the wreckage of Yugoslavia. The powerful nations among us were hesitant to take any preventive actions to save the Muslim Albanians for fear of antagonizing the Russians. The smaller states had no capacity to do anything. The UN was restrained from offering any help for lack of consensus among its powerful members. While the poor Kosovars were being murdered whole sale.

We are now, at this very moment, confronted with the same challenge in Darfur, Southwest Sudan. One million already perished in the dusty desert on the wasteland of the border between Sudan and Chad. Over Three hundred thousands have been made homeless and more will join the rank of the internally displaced. The Christians suffer at the hands of the Janjaweeds, while the Khartoum government refused to allow any meaningful external forces to come in to restore law and order, not even the AU or the UN forces. According the Sudanese leader, Omar Al-Bashir, external forces would constitute a foreign intervention that all Africans abhor.

One theme runs through all three episodes of sadness described above. The antiquarian principle of absolute state sovereignty and non-interference among states. Foreign governments, foreign institutions or foreign forces are not supposed to get involved in internal affairs of other states without an expressed invitation or permission to do so. Unfortunately ethnic cleansing, tribal feuds, communal strives constitute some of the ugliest forms of non-traditional threats we are facing today.

And there are others. Pandemic diseases (read SARS and Bird Flu), trans-boundary crimes, natural disasters, global warming, human trafficking, drug trade, environmental degradation, all these threaten human lives and livelihood or what is known as "human security." A concept that has the human person as the center of consideration. As opposed to the traditional concept of security with the state at the center of analysis.

The traditional tools dealing with "new" threats are no longer adequate and effective. The international community has been grappling with this new challenge for quite sometime now. The sum of its efforts is to shift the focus from "state security" to "human security."

The first time the concept emerged an analytical tool was when Mahbub al-Haq revived the concepts of "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear" as a theme of the Human Development Report of 1994. It was meant to guide efforts for international development for a few decades ahead. A world ravaged by wars would not be easily developed. But a world would not be developed by the absence of war alone. Peace and prosperity are mutually reinforcing. Human security was to be a goal for human development from then onward.

Inspired by this concept, a group of countries led by Canada and Norway started in 1997 a caucus called "Human Security Network." They met once a year to coordinate policies aiming at the elimination of poverty, small arms, landmines, child soldiers, pandemic diseases. Issues that are considered more and more dangerous to human lives in the absence of external wars between ideological blocs or territorial disputes between states. They made an impact on the international arena.

The group went further to initiate, with the support of the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, a joint task force on the limitation of the concept of state sovereignty in the face of human tragedies like Rwanda and Kosovo. How to get around the absolute principle of state sovereignty and reach inside state boundaries to rescue people under clear and present danger?

Lloyd Axworthy and Knut Vollaback joined hands and established the Commission on State Sovereignty and Intervention. It took three years for them to come up with a report entitled The Responsibility to Protect. The report introduces a new modality and conditionality into the "humanitarian intervention" debate that has become a controversial issue in the international community.

While the "Western approach" to the "human security" debate was reaching its conclusion in the form of The Responsibility to Protect, the Japanese government was also considering the concept of human security as a possible theme for its international engagement. Being the main contributor to the rescue package to the Financial Crisis that devastated the East Asian countries in 1997, Japan realized very well that there were many structural defects in the international system, particularly of East Asia, that would render the regional governments paralyzed if struck by non-traditional threats that come with the exposure of globalization and competition. Millions of people fell through the social safety net systems established by state authorities. Social and political turmoil ensued in many countries. Left unattended, the entire region could become engulfed in instability and violence.

With the inspiration of the late Prime Minister Obuchi, the Commission on Human Security was established at the beginning of 2001. It was co-chaired by Madam Sadako Ogata and a Nobel Laureate in economics, Professor Amartya Sen. It looked into "softer issues" of human security. Poverty, diseases, migration, environment and education. It was mindful of the objection of the new states to the invasive and interfering "humanitarian intervention" doctrine being proposed. It could be called the "Eastern or Japanese model" of human security. Its guiding principle is a dual approach to the concept: Protection for people under duress and threats to their lives and livelihood, and human development for the fulfillment of human potentials for all people. The Commission, affiliated and sanctioned by the United Nations, issued its report in December 2003 entitled Human Security Now.

It is now recognized that when faced with non-traditional threats that come in various forms unanticipated and catching countries unprepared, the evolving concept of human security is a useful tool for analytical and cooperative action. The focus must now shifted from the "state" as a primary "focus" and "actor" of the concept of security to the "human beings" as the locus of analysis and protective measures.

But resistance is still very strong on the parts of the new states which are still in the process of state building and jealous of their state sovereignty. Suspicion against external interference is very apparent and abhorrence against any effort to dilute the state's absolute hold over internal matters is very widespread among the developing countries.

This sensitive but urgent issue of collective approach to a changing nature of common threats was reflected in the report of the United Nation's "High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change" (2004) entitled A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility. A central point of its findings is: "No state, no matter how powerful, can by its own efforts alone make itself invulnerable to today's threats. Every state requires the cooperation of other states to make itself secure It is in every state's interest, accordingly, to cooperate with other states to address their most pressing threats, because doing so will maximize the chances of reciprocal cooperation to address its own threats priorities." (p. 16)

And on the issue of absolute sovereignty carried over since the time of the Treaty of Westphalia, the Report says that "whatever perceptions may have prevailed when the Westphalian system first gave rise to the notion of state sovereignty, today it clearly carries with it the obligation of a state to protect the welfare of its own peoples and meet its obligations to the wider international community." ( p. 17)

Here within the ASEAN region, the same strong reservation against external involvement in domestic affairs is clearly present among the member states. So much so that a gentle nudge of moving toward more regional engagement on issues of common danger in 1998 in the form of "Flexible Engagement" was rejected in favor of the traditional "constructive engagement" and "non-interference." But the logic of protecting and promoting human security in the face of non-traditional threats is precisely the pooling of sovereignty and sharing of oversight by member states. The downside of integration, exposure to each other's problems and domestic strife must be managed thorough some form of cross border monitoring and regional vigilance.

We are now witnessing some movement within the ASEAN leadership on this issue. This morning (January 9) in the Straits Times of Singapore, Deputy Prime Minister S. Jayakumar, in his capacity as a member of the ASEAN Eminent Person Group, opined that without some embellishment on the principle of "non-interference," ASEAN as a group risks being an irrelevant organization. The mounting problems facing the region are calling for joint action and opening up of our borders for mutual monitoring.

That is quite a shift from 1998 when I introduced the concept of "Flexible Engagement." At that time I was chided by non other than Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew who admonished that "Surin should draw in his horns a little bit" on the issue of cross border surveillance of common problems. I am glad to see the development and I hope the suggestion will be enshrined eventually in the ASEAN Charter to be drafted soon.

Your charge here is to figure out how this Consortium is going to go about its business of cooperation on the research, analysis and management of non-traditional threats coming towards us as an Asia-Pacific Community. I am submitting to you this notion that traditional tools with focus on the security of the state are no longer adequate and fully relevant. We need to shift the analysis to the security of the human person, i.e. human security. But that will put you into conflict with those who are jealous of the primary role of the state in all things security. Your contributions toward better accommodation between the two concepts of security in the face of mounting pressure from all the non-traditional threats facing us at present will help us prepare ourselves for the danger and the disruptions that will surely come. And I put my case before you now that failing to deal with these non-traditional threats to our security is a failure of states in their primary responsibility.

Such is the challenge, such is the charge. You have accepted the challenge. I wish you God speed in your cooperative endeavors in this noble mission.

Thank you.

To return to Inaugural Meeting page, click here.
To view snapshots from the Inaugural Meeting, click here.

To return to Inaugural Meeting page, click here.