Human Security
Definition
Human security is a multi-sectoral approach to security that gives primacy to people. The Human Security Approach and Guiding Principles, adopted at the Madrid Summit in June 2022, provide the Alliance with a common understanding of human security. For NATO, it encompasses five areas: combatting trafficking in human beings, protection of children in armed conflict, preventing and responding to conflict-related sexual violence, protection of civilians, and cultural property protection.
- For NATO, human security relates to risks and threats to populations where NATO has operations, missions, or activities and how to mitigate and respond to them.
- NATO recognises the importance of reducing the impact of its actions on civilian populations in conflict zones and wherever else it may be conducting activities.
- At the Madrid Summit in June 2022, Heads of State and Government emphasised the centrality of human security by endorsing the Human Security Approach and Guiding Principles, which provide that NATO will be people-centred, actively integrate gender perspectives and address the differentiated impacts of conflict and crisis on different people in the population, especially those in situations of vulnerability or marginalisation.
- The 2022 Strategic Concept, NATO’s core policy document, underlines that human security, including the protection of civilians and civilian harm mitigation, is central to NATO’s crisis prevention and management approach. It also commits NATO to work with other international actors to address the broader conditions fuelling crisis and pervasive instability and to contribute to stabilisation and reconstruction.
- NATO has a number of policies and guiding documents related to human security, including the protection of civilians (2016), preventing and responding to conflict-related sexual violence (2021), combatting trafficking in human beings (updated in 2023), and children and armed conflict (2023).
Connection to CIMIC:
CIMIC is deeply involved in protecting civilians, putting human beings at the centre of each action. Human security is a broader scope of NATO that combines all affected topics under one umbrella.
Source
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_181779.htm
Key words
Human Security
People-Centred Approach
Protection of Civilians
Conflict Prevention
Gender Perspectives
Vulnerability
Humanitarian Action
CIMIC and Human Security
Conflict-related Sexual Violence
Civilian Harm Mitigation