DEVELOPMENT: Germany Pleads For Global Human Security Experiences

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Ramesh Jaura

BONN, Nov 10 2000 (IPS) - The strengthening of the United Nations and a reform of the Security Council are two important steps towards ensuring “global human security” which encompasses social and economic development, says Germany’s minister for economic cooperation and development, Heidemarie Wieczoek-Zeul.

Reviving the concept of global human security that has been gathering dust since it was introduced six years ago, she adds: “The global protection of human security requires institutions and instruments for reducing and controlling force and the means of force.”

The concept of global human security was introduced in the 1994 Human Development Report of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP).

“The search for security…lies in development, not in arms,” said the report.

“…It will not be possible for the community of nations to achieve any of its major goals – not peace, not environmental protection, not human rights or democratisation, not fertility reduction, not social integration – except in the context of sustainable development that leads to humans security,” the report added.

It was published ahead of the World Social Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in March 1995.

“…Only by strengthening global security structures will it be possible to move away from ‘might makes right’ towards the ‘might of the law’,” argues Wieczoek-Zeul in a paper presented to an international conference on ‘Development and Disarmament’ early this month here.

The conference, attended – among others – by former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Oscar Arias Sanchez, was convened by the German Ministry of Economic Co-operation and Development in association with the German Society for International Development (DSE).

The German minister said it was important to achieve a more balanced representation of all regions of the world and all groups of countries and to eliminate the veto, which has repeatedly led to de facto paralysis of the United Nations.

According to Wieczorek-Zeul, the U.N.’s “monopoly to legitimising force” also implies a moral obligation towards the international community to actually provide the necessary security in an emergency. “Confidence in this mechanism is an important pre-requisite for disarmament and for reducing the potential for violence in general.”

While stressing the need for establishment of an International Criminal Court, the German minister pleaded for setting up “an ever more closely knit mesh of international provisions to protect human rights,” such as the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflicts.

The protocol was signed during the U.N. Millennium Assembly last September.

The German federal parliament voted last month in favour of an amendment of the country’s constitution, thus taking a step forward towards ratifying the Rome Statute for setting up the International Criminal Court.

Germany has also been canvassing support for the Court in its development policy dialogue with the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, offering assistance in creating the requisite national basis to transpose the provisions of the Rome Statute into their national legal systems.

Wieczorek-Zeul regretted that even after the end of the East- West conflict nearly ten years ago, industrialised countries comprising the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) spend some 500 billion US dollars a year on arms.

On the other hand, their official development assistance to the Third World countries amounted to 55.9 billion US dollars last year – less than a quarter of one percent of the OECD countries’ gross national income and one-tenth of their arms expenditure.

“The good news is that the development community is taking notice of the effects of military spending,” says Nobel Laureate Arias whose views aroused a great interest at the Bonn conference.

The former president of Costa Rica – a country that does not have an army – says in a paper presented at the gathering, that “military spending represents the single most significant perversion”.

It is estimated that 780 billion dollars were spent on military technology and training worldwide in 1999. However, just five percent of the amount would be sufficient to guarantee basic education, health care and nutrition, potable water and sanitation to all of the world’s people.

“And yet, instead of investing in the health an education of their people, poor countries continue to buy weapons, and rich countries continue to supply then,” says Arias, adding: “And people continue to turn a blind eye, and pretend that arms and poverty have no connection.”

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), three quarters of all arms exports worldwide went to developing countries between 1995 and 1998. Major recipients included richer countries in the Gulf region and Taiwan, but also the poorer ones such as Egypt, India and Pakistan.

The largest exporters are the five permanent members of the Security Council – USA, China, Russia, Britain and France.

Between 1995 and 1998, they accounted for 86 percent of the arms trade with developing countries. Vast numbers of second-hard arms were also transferred to third countries as a result of the end of the East- West conflict.

Even poor developing countries such as Burundi, Botswana, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Sudan, Nepal and Colombia are among the top group of countries building up stockpiles of arms.