Human Security and Non-Citizens: Law, Policy and International Affairs.

• Author: Haley, Lucy
• Position: Book review

Human Security and Non-Citizens: Law, Policy and International Affairs, Edited by Alice Edwards & Carla Ferstman, Cambridge University Press, 2010. ($130.99).

In Human Security and Non-Citizens: Law, Policy and International Affairs, (1) editors Alice Edwards and Carla Ferstman and their contributing authors explore the extent to which the emerging paradigm of human security can address the problems faced by non-citizens in the international community. The editors define non-citizens broadly as "anyone who is not a citizen of the country in which he or she presently resides," (2) and thus the essays in this volume focus not just on refugees, but also on migrant workers, stateless individuals, trafficked individuals, those displaced by climate change, and non-citizen terror suspects in the context of the "war on terror."

In their introductory chapter, "Humanising non-citizens: the convergence of human rights and human security" Edwards and Ferstman argue that there are gaps in the international human rights framework with regards to protection of noncitizens. They suggest that human security may "serve to plug some of the gaps" in the human rights framework, particularly with regards to problems of enforceability of human rights guarantees. (3) The editors describe the human security concept as an out-growth of scholarship in the area of international development, that was first discussed in a 1994 United Nations Human Development Report. (4) In 2000, the U.N. Commission on Human Security was formed to further explore this topic, resulting in the final report, Human Security Now,. Human security emerged partially as a response to the sovereignty-based realist national security discourse. In contrast, in a national security framework the reference point is the state, in the human security framework the reference point is the individual? Drawing on a speech by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, (6) the Report identifies various freedoms, including freedom from fear and freedom from want as the building blocks of human security, and identifies two strategies for promoting these freedoms: protection and empowerment. (7) The report also focuses on the concept of 'shared sovereignty': the idea that we live in an increasingly interdependent world, and that the nation can no longer enjoy unlimited sovereignty. (8)

The contributing authors are a mix of academics and practitioners of international human rights law. By highlighting the areas in which their particular group of non-citizens are left unprotected by international human rights law, either by absence of a legal framework or absence of political will to accept or enforce the exiting laws, the authors draw attention to areas where the human security paradigm could "plug in gaps" as Edwards and Ferstman suggest.

The book is divided into four parts: in Part I, the editors set forth their vision for how the human security discourse could complement the existing international human rights law framework, with regard to the rights and needs of non-citizens. Part II, "Physical and legal security, armed conflict and refuge," contains five chapters addressing issues relating to refugees--a traditional point of focus in international human rights law and discourse. Part III, "Migration, development and environment" contains five chapters addressing those populations who have been excluded from the refugee discourse: migrant...