Achieving human security

The most extreme form of societal disruption is the eruption of violence in all its forms. Peace and human security are always the basic priorities of citizens and communities, but various powerful interests at play overcome these aspirations in absence of strong counterforces that would promote freedom, recognition, and justice.

Violent conflicts have been increasing in recent years, involving wars between states, imperial and colonial wars, civil wars, terrorism, organized crime, trafficking and criminal violence.

Discrimination remains widespread and often induces violence against minorities by mobs or established policing institutions.

Peace-keeping mechanisms and regime changes engineered by states, under UN mandates or other alliances, have been very problematic, and the UN security framework is unanimously considered broken.

Peace and reconciliation initiatives led by civil society organizations have relentlessly emerged in various crises, and contain promising innovations that deserve further study and generalization.

See our working groups on Promoting human security and global solidarity