The Utility of Collective Security in the Context of Human Security: The Yugoslav and Somali Experiences

When one examines closely the record of performance/non-performance of the UNSC at the crucial moments of the post-Cold War era, where major issues of peace and security are involved, including cases of human security crises, one finds that there is almost always tragic dilatoriness and/or lamentable inactions. While the UN was formed to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’ the list of scourges is growing. The real threats to international peace and security are no longer confined to violations of state sovereignty. Rather, new assertions of nationalism and sovereignty have sprung up, and the cohesion of States has been threatened by interstate conflict, poverty, infectious disease and environmental degradation, internal violence; including civil wars, genocide, ethnic-cleansing and state-failures, weapons-of-mass-destruction; including chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear-weapons, terrorism, and transnational-organized-crime, discrimination, and massive violations of human rights. All representing international security threats beyond the scope of any one state to solve. While the concept of peace may be easy to grasp, that of international security is more complex, for a pattern of contradictions has arisen. What is more worrisome is that each of these challenges is in a complex relationship of inter-linkage with each other. This paper intends to look at the changing scope of security, in the new environment of growing inter-linkage between peace-security-and-development, and to take a critical look at the new concept of human security and its implications to the treatment of the issue of collective-security in the UN. Data collection was through content analysis and analysed using the quantitative chi-square scientific method.