European perspectives on global health: a policy glossary

2. Europe must include global health in all fields of policy
Human security and health
Security is usually defined as the condition of
being protected from, or not exposed to, some
danger or threat. Human security includes
freedom from want and freedom from fear.
This means the absence of hunger and illness
as well as of violence and war. Human security
places the individual rather than the state at
the centre of security considerations.
The proliferation of efforts to connect public
health and security reveals both the emergence
of the political importance of public health and
the lack of consensus about what security should
mean in international relations and foreign policy.
Some experts support only a narrow connection
between security and health that flows from the
threat of violence from biological weapons. Other
commentators would also include virulent, fastmoving
communicable disease pandemics, such as
pandemic influenza, as security threats. More broadly,
human security proponents would expand the range
of health threats to individuals that count as security
issues beyond contagious pandemics. Security-based
arguments and rhetoric have become commonplace in
the world politics of public health.
In international relations and foreign policy thinking,
security has generally meant national security, or the
security of the state from military violence used or
threatened by another state. This state-centric violence
paradigm shaped how leaders and governments
conceived of national security. Anything that fell
outside of the threat of military violence from another
state was not, by definition, a security issue. Thus,
public health problems, such as communicable disease
epidemics, were traditionally outside the realm of
security policy. Historically, security and health never
developed any type of policy relationship.
The end of the Cold War opened a new debate
about what security means and a more diverse
range of issues began to appear on the national
security agendas of states, ranging from terrorism
to environmental degradation. In addition, other
concepts of security, most notably the idea of
human security promulgated by the United Nations
Development programme, began to challenge the
traditional dominance of national security. Human
security placed the individual rather than the State at
the centre of security consideration.
The United Nations Development Programme’s
( UNDP ) 1994 Human Development Report is
considered a milestone publication in the field of
human security, marking the point where the concept
gained international acceptance. The UNDP report
states that human security consists of two basic
pillars : the freedom from want and the freedom from
fear. This means the absence of hunger and illness
as well as of violence and war. Considered further,
possible threats to human security were categorised
into seven main categories : economic, food, health,
environmental, personal, community, and political
security.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, health has been
increasingly connected with different concepts of
security. Experts have referred to this process as the
“securitisation” of public health. The diversity of
ways in which public health has been securitised is
impressive. Threats of biological weapons proliferation
among state and non-state actors led many countries,
especially the United States, to see national and
international public health capabilities as critical
national security assets should responses to biological
violence be required. The UN Security Council
considers HIV / AIDS a threat to international peace
and security. Strategic visions of reforming the United
Nations prominently emphasised the importance
of public health to the concept of “comprehensive
collective security.” The World Health Organization
( WHO ) presented its new strategy against the global
threat of communicable diseases as one that would
strengthen “global health security.” Finally, the
increasing threats individuals and populations face
from different disease problems directly connected
public health with the human security concept.
The securitisation of public health has important
implications for the individual and collective efforts of
<strong>European</strong> countries on both health and security policy.
The Member States of the <strong>European</strong> Union have long
been in pursuit of a common strategy or approach
to security problems, and the new linkages between
security and health raise questions and perhaps
opportunities for the EU’s desire for a common
22 <strong>European</strong> Foundation Centre – <strong>European</strong> Partnership for Global Health