Human Security.· An Expansion of the Concept of Global Security?

This essay shows the advance of research on the concept of human security developed in the International Research and Prospective Program of the Instituto Matías Romero. The paper is divided into two large sections; in the first, Villanueva Ayón explains how, after the Cold War, the concept of security was transformed in that it stopped being merely military, and acquired a multidimensional nature. The term human security began to appear in 1992, within the United Nations; one year later, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) became its main promoter. According to the UNDP, human security is a category that, beyond the concept of defensive security (limited to territory or military might), it entails personal, economic, food, health, community, environmental and policy security of all individuals. In the second part, the author analyzes the main promoters of human security, dividing them for that effect, into countries, international bodies, nongovernmental organizations and academic organizations. The activism of the Canadian government stands out in relation to the foregoing, since by forming a global security strategy based on the precepts of the UNDP, it has redefined its foreign policy. As the author points out in her conclusions, despite the lack of consolidation of the concept of security, it has been gradually incorporated into academic debates and into the foreign policy agendas of nations.