Environmental Security and Global Violence

Abstract

For many years, the prevailing notion of security has been associated with the ‘realist' military<br />side of conflict management, understood as ‘national security'. For us the term does not just mean the<br />interplay of deterring, compelling, defensive and offensive force in the pursuit of a self-defined national<br />interest. Above all, and at a fundamental level it includes the safety and quality of life of all human beings and their ecosystems. Conceptually, we could define such security as the reciprocal value of insecurity. It refers to all those trends and factors - environmental, economic, social, political and cultural - that increase the risk, exposure and vulnerability for a given population. In earlier works it is contended that within highly complex and interconnected systems, the security of the whole, including that of its seemingly most protected components, paradoxically depends upon the system's weakest links. There is the urgency for exploring broader and longer-term mechanisms to devise and strengthen global governance so that world stability, security, social justice, sustainability and well-being for all are guaranteed.