Human Security.

A new view of foreign policy has evolved recently in Canada; it's one that places emphasis on the security of individuals rather than nations

Everything changed when the Cold War ended in 1991. For almost half a century, the Western allies and the Soviet Union, armed to the teeth, glared at each other across Central Europe. Foreign policy for Canada existed within the context of that East-West hostility. The outbreak of another war in Europe seemed the most likely threat to our peace and security so, obviously, our major goal was to prevent that from happening.

Then, in the early 1990s, the Soviet Union began to collapse; officially, it broke up on 26 December 1991. The main component of the Soviet Union, Russia, has since staggered from one crisis to another. It has stumbled badly on the road to democracy and freedom, and it is no longer the military force it was. The only superpower left in today's world is the United States.

But, this does not mean the world is now peaceful and secure. New threats to our well-being have emerged and that means Canada has had to refocus its foreign policy.

When the Liberal government of Jean Chretien came to power in 1993, it began a foreign policy review. There were months of hearings by a joint parliamentary committee; there were hundreds of written briefs from foreign policy experts, lobby groups, and ordinary Canadians; and, there was the start up of annual foreign policy forums.

By the time bureaucrats and politicians had filtered all the advice offered, the message seemed clear - trade is the root from which foreign policy grows. First and foremost, according to this view, foreign policy is a matter of self-interest. The top priority is "the promotion of prosperity and employment" at home. That doesn't mean that Canada abandons its traditional activities of peacekeeping, foreign aid, and promoting democracy and human rights observance. It does mean that economic security comes first. The argument is that healthy economies give life to democracy, freedom, peace, and security.

If Canada and its government are penniless then none of its international activities are possible. If the nations Canada is trying to help are also broke there is little point in promoting values such as equality and the rule of law. That was the philosophy that drove Canada's foreign policy for a couple of years. However, it left Prime Minister Chretien's Liberals open to the criticism that they were putting dollars before people.

In January 1996, Lloyd Axworthy became Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs. It's a job the MP from Winnipeg had wanted for many years and his appointment signalled another change in direction for Canada's role in the world.

Foreign relations are usually conducted on a nation-to-nation basis. Mr. Axworthy wants to add to this. He says traditional, state-based security is not out of date, rather "human security and national security ... are opposite sides of the same global Security coin." He wants Canada's relationship to the rest of the world to revolve around protecting individual civilians and improving their lives. It is a different way of seeing the world, it puts the security of people at its centre, rather than focussing only on the security of territory or governments. It recognizes that democratic development, human rights and fundamental freedoms, the rule of law, good governance, and sustainable development are as important to global peace as arms control and disarmament.

Another issue is the increasing casualties among civilians in war. Today, most violent conflicts are not between nations but within nations. Of the 87 armed conflicts around the world recorded in 1997, 84 of them were intrastate conflicts, nearly all in developing countries. And, more and more, civilians are the main victims and targets. One estimate is that 90% of the casualties in a typical war today are civilians.

At the same time, there has been an erosion of state control. This decline is most evident in failed states, where governments are simply incapable of providing even basic security for people threatened by warlords and bandits. Challenges to state control can also be seen in the expansion of organized crime, drug trafficking, and the growth of private security forces. A couple of examples: large parts of Colombia are now no-go areas for the country's government as they are under the control of guerrilla forces or drug barons; in Somalia, no central government even exists.

But, failed security can take many forms and can affect people far away from war zones. Today, threats can cross national boundaries very quickly. The revolution in global communication and travel has brought a growing number of hazards to people's health - from long-range transmission of pollutants to infectious diseases. Just as viruses can hop borders, so can economic shocks. In 1997, the economy of Thailand went into a tailspin. Within weeks most of South Asia was infected with the same economic collapse. Within months, it spread to affect Russia, part of Africa and South America. It also had a huge impact on British Columbia.

The range of threats to human security is large. Obviously, warfare is a major hazard, but there are human security risks wherever the underpinnings of democracy are weak. When states are aggressive towards their neighbours; when they deny their own citizens basic rights and freedoms; when they are too weak to govern effectively, they threaten the security of people.

The Charter of the United Nations contains the view that security cannot be achieved by a single state on its own. The phrase "international peace and security" implies that the security of one state depends on the security of other states. A human security perspective builds on this logic by noting that the security of people in one part of the world depends on the security of people elsewhere.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. At the start of 1999, there were approximately 35,000 nuclear warheads in the world. Their combined explosive force is 500,000 times that of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. Canada is focussing much of its limited diplomatic energy towards controlling anti-personnel landmines and small arms. While nuclear weapons contain the potential for destroying the entire human race, guns and mines are killing people today. Organize a discussion on which of these issues the Canadian government should pursue most vigorously.

2. One of the goals of Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy is to set Canada's foreign policy goals in consultation with as wide a sampling of Canadians as possible. Organize a foreign policy conference for your school with the aim of establishing priorities for Canada. Have a group of students write a transcript of the conference proceedings and send it to Minister Axworthy.

3. Through discussion write your own definition of human security.

FACT FILE

The 1994 United Nations Human Development Report defined seven elements it said were necessary for human security: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political.

Between 1991 and 1993, the United Nations Security Council authorized 15 new peace operations compared to a total of 17 in the previous half century.

RELATED ARTICLE: A SEAT AMONG THE MIGHTY

The Security Council of the United Nations is where decisions of major international importance are made. There are five permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States - any one of which can block Security Council action by voting against it. This is called the veto. There are ten non-permanent members; five nations are selected each year to occupy these seats for two years. Canada has been on the Security Council six times, the most recent stint beginning in January 1999. Canada campaigned hard for that seat because it gives those who have it huge international prestige. It also gives Canada a pulpit from which to preach its message about reform of the Security Council. Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy wants the Security Council to address issues such as the illegal trade in small arms, environmental problems, drug trafficking, the use of child soldiers, and terrorism as well as military conflicts. But, Canada's biggest concern is the overwhelming power of the five permanent members. They often discuss and decide on issues among themselves - in secret. There's not much the ten non-permanent members can do but go along with these decisions. And, any one of the five can veto any decision they wish. The minority of countries with the most power are not elected, while elected members, who form the majority, have the least power. This is not a very good model for an organization that is, in part, promoting democracy. Canada wants to use its term on the Security Council to narrow the power gulf between permanent and nonpermanent members. Canada also wants the Security Council to deal with all conflicts. For example, the UN has been criticized for taking almost no action to halt the mass murder of 500,000 people in Rwanda in 1994 while plunging deeply into the conflict in Kosovo. In a speech in 1999, Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy spoke about Canada's goal in this area. "The Council's writ is universal. It represents the entire international community. Consequently, its credibility depends on a willingness to address threats to peace and security wherever they occur. And when it decides to act, it needs to have the resources to do so effectively. The progressive starvation of peacekeeping resources, human and financial, is a matter of deep concern." The last comment was clearly aimed at the United States which, at the time Mr. Axworthy spoke, owed the United Nations $1.3 billion in dues.

RELATED ARTICLE: UPSETTING UNCLE SAM 

When Lloyd Axworthy was appointed Foreign Minister in 1996, he came to the job with something of a reputation for being anti-American. In opposition, he was loudly critical of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's close friendship with U.S. Presidents Reagan and Bush. He strongly opposed the testing of U.S. cruise missiles over Canadian territory. However, the first item on his foreign policy agenda, just as with all his predecessors, is maintaining good economic and political relations with the United States. That's where 80% of our exports go; it's where 65% of our foreign investment comes from; two million Canadian jobs depend on trade with the U.S.

There is a strong element of what's called isolationism in the U.S. Tending to come mostly from the more conservative Republican Party, isolationists argue that America has little to gain and much to lose by deep involvement in international organizations. !t has a giant economy and can pretty much dictate its own trade terms to its partners. Militarily, it can defend itself on its own from almost any threat imaginable. Twice in the 20th century, foreign alliances dragged if into European wars that took the lives of more than half a million Americans. U.S. taxpayers fund about one quarter of the cost of the United Nations and many of them have grown tired of listening to delegates slagging their country in the General Assembly.

It's not difficult to see why many Americans believe their country can avoid messy foreign entanglements by isolating itself. So, Canada must work to counter this go-it-alone movement in the U.S. As Foreign Minister Axworthy wrote in 1997, Canada's "primary relationship remains, now and forever, the one we maintain with the U.S." By tradition, that relationship is nurtured by the prime minister and the president. Sometimes, as with Jean Chretien and Bill Clinton, the two leaders get along well. Sometimes, as with Pierre Trudeau and Richard Nixon, they don't.

Whatever the quality of the relationship, getting into public spats with the U.S. government is never to Canada's advantage. But, sometimes it seems as though Prime Minister Chretien's government has gone out of its way to annoy the Americans.

For 40 years, the United States has been trying to remove Fidel Castro's communist government in Cuba. So it puzzles many experts to see first Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy and then Prime Minister Jean Chretien chumming around with the Cuban dictator in 1997.

Two of the projects Mr. Axworthy has put enormous energy into - the ban on landmines and the International Criminal Court - have both been strongly opposed by Washington.

In November 1998, Canada opposed U.S. nuclear weapons policy, something it has almost never done in the past. A United Nations resolution called upon the United States and other states with nuclear weapons to make firm commitments to getting rid of these arms. The U.S., Britain, and France were adamantly opposed to the resolution and put fierce pressure on Canada to vote against it. Canada and 11 other NATO partners abstained (voting neither for nor against) in the vote, something Canada's disarmament ambassador Douglas Roche called "a stunning defeat" for the U.S.

RELATED ARTICLE: PEACEBUILDING

Canadian peacekeepers have been very busy. Members of our armed forces have taken part in almost every United Nations peacekeeping mission. But, peacekeepers usually only arrive on the scene after blood has been shed.

The Canadian Peacebuilding Initiative is an attempt to take action before lives are lost. It was set up in 1996 to fund projects that build democratic institutions, train legislators, public servants, judges, and lawyers, and create an independent media.

The Peacebuilding Fund is operated by the Canadian International Development Agency with an annual budget of $10 million. Projects funded range from support for the investigation of human rights violations, public education on conflict resolution techniques, arms collection and destruction, and voter education. There have also been efforts at reconstruction and reconciliation after conflicts have ended.

Websites

Human Security Agenda http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/ foreignp/ HumanSecurity/menu-e.htm

Canadian Peacebuilding Initiative http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/ peacebuilding/peace-e.asp

The Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee http://www.cpcc.ottawa.on.ca