In a May 22, 2008, plenary debate at the UN, members discussed the need for a "human security" focus in addressing national and international security concerns, according to a UN press release. The humanitarian crises caused by the early-May natural disasters in Burma (Myanmar) and China illustrated the need for a human security framework, one where the individual's security is considered part of the nation's security, according to the keynote address delivered by Prince El-Hassan bin Talal of Jordan. He stated:

'I believe that, together, as a global citizenry, we must now confront the many problems that impact our lives across territorial boundaries, including matters of shared international concerns that Governments and markets are not equipped to address.'

The release continues:

[T]he scale of the crises of the last few weeks in Myanmar and China had reminded us of our common vulnerability and shared humanity, while emphasizing the need to bring human security from the ‘conceptual to the practical’...

Let me share my two euro-cents on the matter: in my summer internship, I am examining the concept of "human security" at the European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. In my first week here, I've learned that the key concern in a human security framework is the broad definition of what makes an individual free from fear and free from want (which was the basic understanding of "human security" at its advent in 1994). Who is responsible for declaring the acceptable amount of fear and want of a citizenry? Who steps in to protect these interests? The state? And what if it doesn't?

And, more urgently, what if the state is causing harm to its own people? The international community was motivated to coin and use the term partly because of failures of intervention such as those in Rwanda and Somalia. The motivation to correct those mistakes must not be forgotten.

Ultimately the sovereign state must have primacy in international policy, but in particular I wish the UN had had a more pointed discussion of the human security of the Burmese people, and the Burmese government's lack of interest in it. The failure of the Burmese junta to warn its population of the coming cyclone or to allow international aid workers access to the hardest-hit impact zones brings into question the international community's role in protecting "human security." It is a pretty concept, something poetic with which to dress up UN press releases, and may remain only that unless some international agency with the authority and capacity to do so uses it as a pretext for intervening in Burma.