Rethinking Security, a network of peace and security practitioners, today publishes a briefing for parliamentarians, civil society and media to explain how human security should be at the heart of the government’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, due to be launched on Tuesday 11th March.
Human Security and the Integrated Review explains what the approach means, how it has developed and been adopted by various actors, including the UK government, and how past UK national security strategies have failed to uphold it, with calamitous consequences for our health security and the viability of our ecosystem.
The briefing precedes a Westminster Hall Debate on Human Security, the first time the approach has been directly debated in Parliament. It also coincides with the course of a private members bill on the Wellbeing of Future Generations, which has attracted cross-party support in the Lords and Commons.
It marks the culmination of Rethinking Security’s year-long engagement with the Integrated Review and the beginning of an ambitious three-year project to conduct an Alternative Security Review that puts human security first.
Rethinking Security Co-ordinator Richard Reeve said:
“While the government has been mulling its Integrated Review and a military ‘tilt’ to Asia, Covid-19 and the accelerating climate and ecological crises have shown that the real threats to our common security are transnational and demand a cooperative international response.
“The decision to separate out the Defence white paper from the wider Review is welcome, but the MoD is just one of many branches of government that needs to be involved in upholding the human security of people in the UK.
“Past UK National Security Strategies have referenced climate change as a long-term concern, mainly affecting security in far-off places. This review must follow Sir David Attenborough’s recent advice, put climate security front and centre and acknowledge the scale and immediacy of the threat to all of us from ecological collapse.
“Over the next three years Rethinking Security will be coordinating an Alternative Security Review to do what this and previous governments should have done: to develop a Human Security Strategy for the UK, its people and the planet.”
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