I have an article in the latest International Affairs, written with Mary Martin from LSE, on the future of the concept of Human Security in the UN and EU. We argue that the EU flirtations with the concept as a potential unified foreign policy narrative may signal a second generation of human security policy. Abstract is below, full text here.

The Second Generation of Human Security: Lessons from the UN and EU Experience

This article examines the divergence of human security narratives between the UN and the EU. It argues that the UN’s use of the concept ran aground owing to a triple problematic of lack of clarity, confusion between previously distinct policy streams on human rights and human development and conceptual overstretch. After assessing the EU experience with the concept to date, the article argues that future use of human security will require greater focus on how it deepens ideas of individual security, rather than treating it as an agenda for broadening security. As well as a need to project clarity on the conceptual definition of human security, there is also a need to associate human security with greater clarity of intent. If successful, this would contribute to establishing second generation human security as a new policy paradigm.

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