THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN SECURITY BEFORE THE 1994 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT. INQUIRY INTO ITS EVOLUTION DURING THE COLD WAR

Abstract

It is usually considered that the concept of human security was introduced by the United Nations Development Programme with the publication in 1994 of the Human Development Report. Such a perspective on the emergence of this concept denies its existence during the Cold War and places its point of origin in the aftermath of that confrontation. However, there is also the opinion that human security was a term used during the Cold War, but that the meaning then attached to it lacks any relevancy for the meaning it has in the 1994 Human Development Report. This article contributes to the assessment of the viability of these different opinions by first exploring the use of the concept of human security by Niels Bohr in an open letter from 1950, and by Sithu U Thant, in a statement made in 1971, and secondly by comparing the meaning they gave to it with its meaning from the 1994 Human Development Report. It is concluded that both Bohr and U Thant operated with a concept of human security narrower in scope than the concept of human security which is to be found in the 1994 Human Development Report and, based on this finding, that the evolution of this concept started long before 1994.