Operational Phases of Human Security Measures in and after Armed Conflict:
How Can We Link Humanitarian Aid to Peace-building?

Hideaki Shinoda
Institute for Peace Science, Hiroshima University

Human security provides a strategic perspective on a link between humanitarian emergency aid and peace-building assistance. This chapter argues that human security in the context of armed conflict has multiple faces. During conflict, human security is pursued through humanitarian emergency aid for refugees and internally displaced people, medical care for war victims, and so on. This is a kind of symptomatic treatment. A deteriorating situation may critically require surgical operations to physically protect civilians and terminate the conflict itself in the form of humanitarian intervention. These measures during conflict will lose importance, however, when efforts for durable peace are also implemented. Since human security will not be well protected until reliable government and stable society are established, peace-building must also be understood as a pillar of human security.

The link between humanitarian aid and peace-building efforts indicates a fundamental question about often-contradictory different goals of the two needs. Protection of individuals might not necessarily create a peaceful society; Building peace may not pay enough attention to humanitarian causes. Human security is a perspective which gives us a clue to how to understand the link between the two needs.

The article identifies the roles of different components of international society in various stages of human security measures. The military has to be recognized as a necessary component of human security, although the necessity should not be overstated. Police force has a relevant but distinct role to play. International aid community composed of international organizations and NGOs plays key roles in humanitarian emergencies as well as long-term developmental aid. More technical areas including judiciary and administrative bureaus demand significant contributions from international experts. These components are mobilized for the goals of emergency aid and peace-building. But they should have such a common guiding principle as human security in order to organize their activities strategically.