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example, Alkire, 2002; Basch et al., 1994; military operations. Generally in the post
Yuval-Davis, 2005). For many in NGOs and Cold War period there has been a growing
development organizations, human security move in security concerns from inter-state to
discourse served as an attempt to overcome intra-state ones, and from national territories
some of the perceived shortcomings of to ethnicized and racialized communities,
human rights discourse, especially its liberal local and trans-national. Moreover, the grow-
version, which excluded economic and social ing use of long-distance guided missiles
rights. It was closely linked to Amartya Sen’s which are targeted at specific people, and the
(1992, 2000) ‘capabilities approach’ to global hunting of particular terrorists, has
development. This approach rejects the greatly exacerbated this tendency.
discourse of rights and entitlements as well It is in this way that ‘human security’ has
as of general measures of opulence, such as been transformed from a cosmopolitan dis-
GNP per capita, and instead focuses on how course of inclusion into a global discourse of
people positioned in all groups in society are exclusion and fear, from a complement of
capable of achieving quality of life in terms human rights to its antithesis. This can be
of achievement and freedom. It argues that illustrated in the various ways ministers in
resources have no value in themselves apart Tony Blair’s Labour government in the UK,
from their role in promoting human function- including the Prime Minister himself, have
ing. This interpretation of human security publicly regretted the incorporation of the
was the dominant one in the Human Security Human Rights Act into British legislation as
Commission, which acted as a consultative blocking an efficient treatment of people
body to UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. who are perceived to be security threats.
This was how human security came to be Ironically, its passage had been one of that
incorporated into his Millennium Report. government’s first acts when it originally
The Report of the Human Security came to power in 1997.
Commission, when it finally came out in 2003,
argued in its introduction that:
Human security complements state security, fur-
thers human development, and enhances human THE GENDERED PARADOXES OF
rights. It complements state security by being SECURE BELONGINGS
people-centered and addressing insecurities that
have not been considered as state security threats. The security discourse is closely related to
By looking at ‘downside risks’, it broadens the
human development focus beyond ‘growth with nationalist politics of belonging. As Anderson
equity’. Respecting human rights is at the core of (1991 [1983]; see also Kitching, 1985)
protecting human security (UN Human Security pointed out, there are very few causes for
Commission, 2003: 3). which people – traditionally men – are ready
However, as Basch and Timothy argue in to sacrifice their lives as well as to kill, one
their articles in the special issue of Peace being the cause of their imagined communi-
Review on human security they edited in ties of belonging. Paradoxically, in the name
2004, by the time the Report came out, the of communal security, real and/or imagined,
subversive use of the notion of ‘security’ they are prepared to sacrifice their personal
which had made it so popular among human security; for the ‘right of self-determination’,
rights and peace activists, had lost much of they are prepared to sacrifice their right to
its flavour, as a result of the shift in discourse live; and for the sake of ‘peace’, they go
on security after 9/11. In the context of the to war. With the shift from national drafts to
‘global war on terror’, the changing patterns professional militaries, however, men – and
of warfare, and the growing securitization of more and more women – are prepared to
borders and boundaries, the notion of human do all this for the security of professional
security reflects the growing individuation of military careers and – as the American and