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<CN>Chapter
3</CN>
<CTL>Non-traditional Security and World Politics</CTL>
<COPAU>Alistair D. B. Cook/COPAU>
<H1>Introduction</H1>
<UIP>Worldwide, people witness devastation caused by floods, earthquakes, storms,
heatwaves and drought that affected 107 million people across 94 countries in 2014
alone (IFRC, 2015). We see infectious disease outbreaks like Ebola in West Africa, which
claimed the lives of 8,600 people in 2014 (IFRC 2015); the Fukushima triple disaster that
claimed the lives of over 18,000 people in 2011 (McCurry 2015); the piracy attacks off
the Horn of Africa peaking in 2007–2008; the continuing reality of human trafficking; and
the impact of the food price crisis of 2007–2008. These crises create widespread political
and economic instability in both the developed and developing worlds.</UIP>
<IP>Crises like these continue to illustrate that security can no longer be limited to
traditional concerns of maintaining and protecting national borders against external
military intervention, but must also include non-traditional security (NTS) threats. These
NTS threats are defined as challenges to the survival and well-being of societies that arise
out of primarily non-military sources, such as climate change, resource scarcity,
infectious diseases, natural disasters, irregular migration, food shortages, trafficking in
persons, drug trafficking and transnational crime. These dangers are often transnational
in scope, defying unilateral remedies and requiring comprehensive – political, economic
and social – responses as well as the humanitarian use of military force (NTS-Asia, cited
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in Caballero-Anthony et al., 2006: 6). Necessarily, the study of NTS concerns goes beyond
borders to focus on multiple levels of governance – local, non-state, state, regional and
global – as sites of cooperation and positions of responsibility.</IP>
<IP>NTS issues are not new but understanding them as a security threat emerged in the
post-Cold War era when global leaders acknowledged the multidimensional nature of
security. Most notably, in 1994, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
released its annual report which identified human security as a concern for human life
and dignity. This created new debates around the definition and limits of security and
the resulting approach came to define much of the 1990s with the United Nations and its
agencies coordinating a large number of initiatives to address human security challenges
the world over.</IP>
<IP>The 1994 UNDP Report identified four characteristics of human security: it is a
universal concern, the components are interdependent, it is easier to achieve through
early prevention, and it is people-centred. The report included seven categories which
formed the main list of threats to human security: economic, food, health, environmental,
personal, community and political security (UNDP, 1994). Emanating from the UNDP, the
Human Security framework involves a more holistic and longer-term approach to
security that focuses on the individual or societal level of analysis. Many scholars
question the human security approach, arguing instead that the state should be the
central unit of analysis in the international system and that the focus of security studies
should be on ‘deliberate threats (primarily, if not exclusively, of a military nature)’ to the
state, which allows, at most, only a limited broadening of the security concept (Alagappa,
1998: 11 and 28). The development of the non-traditional security concept bridges the
divide between these competing conceptions of security. The approaches taken by
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scholars broadly fit within the paradigms of realism, liberalism and critical security
studies. These three approaches often appear as a geopolitical, geo-strategic or state-
centric approach; a human security approach; or a critical security approach.</IP>
<IP>This chapter is concerned with four selected non-traditional security issues:
infectious diseases, transnational crime, energy security, and food security. However, this
is not a comprehensive list of NTS issues, which also includes, for example, climate change
and irregular migration. These issues are covered independently as chapters in their own
right elsewhere in this volume. As this chapter will demonstrate, non-traditional security
issues are often linked to one another. For example, the use of arable farmland for biofuel
production instead of crop cultivation may increase energy security, but may also
negatively affect food security.</IP>
<IP>This chapter now turns to the four key NTS issues of infectious diseases,
transnational crime, energy security and food security. Each section will assess the
transformation of these issues into distinctive security threats and their impact on
contemporary world politics. In particular, the sections will answer four key questions:
How can the non-traditional security threat be distinguished from other features of world
politics? Why is it of particular salience? How has its history shaped its contemporary
form? And how can we make sense of the issue? Each section will conclude by examining
the issue’s dynamics and its future in world politics. Ultimately this investigation will
highlight the dominant framing of an NTS issue to demonstrate the actors involved, the
approaches taken to address it and the implications it has for how we rethink security in
contemporary world politics.</IP>
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<H1>Infectious diseases</H1>
<UIP>The end of the Cold War saw the spread of neoliberal economic development and
the further advancement of technology, which increased awareness of current affairs
around the world and brought a diverse range of issues to the global stage, making them
appear closer in proximity and in real time. Advances in technology and the ease of travel
and trade increased the movement of people and goods across the world, which
heightened states’ and societies’ vulnerabilities to the spread of infectious diseases and
the emergence of bio-terrorism. These vulnerabilities were particularly acute in
developing countries where national sovereignty was closely guarded, state capacity was
weak and there was an existential threat to societal well-being and the stability of the
state. This falls within the developmental state approach that anchored national security
on development (Beeson 2004).</UIP>
<IP>The prominence of health security as a concept became particularly salient in the
2000s, but there are many other earlier cases of disease outbreaks affecting the security
of states and societies. From the devastation of the great Aztec and Inca civilizations by
smallpox introduced by the European settlers (Hopkins 1983 in Rushton 2016: 175) to
the global pandemic of HIV/AIDS in the 1990s and early 2000s, the vulnerability of
human society to disease seems to be a perennial experience. At its first meeting of the
new millennium, the UN Security Council met to discuss the impact of AIDS on peace and
security. Six months later, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1308, stressing that
the HIV/AIDS pandemic, if not monitored, ‘may pose a risk to stability and security’
(McInnes 2006: 315).</IP>
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<IP>Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the threat of infectious diseases gained
prominence in security discourses in the West with many countries beginning to frame
the spread of infectious diseases in national security terms (Davies 2008: 298). However,
it was not until the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in Asia
that health security came to prominence in its own right in world politics. SARS
illustrated the weakness of the global health system and the vulnerability of increasingly
globalized societies, particularly in Asia. In the aftermath of the SARS epidemic, the
international regulatory response was to put a much greater emphasis on building the
capacity of national surveillance and verification systems.</IP>
<IP>This global prominence of health security in the early 2000s prompted a shift
towards a more cooperative approach among many states and organizations. Typical of
this was the World Health Organization’s decision to reorientate its strategy from ‘health
work’ to ‘global health security’ (Caballero-Anthony et al. 2013: 15). This shift saw a move
away from state-centric priorities to an international health security framework of
standardized core capacities to prevent, or at the very least, minimize, the severity of an
infectious disease epidemic (Churchill-Page 2007). Since the year 2000, several other
infectious disease outbreaks have had implications worldwide besides the 2003 SARS
epidemic.</IP>
<IP>In 2009, the A (H1N1) influenza virus epidemic affected almost all regions of the
world. This was followed by the Haiti cholera outbreak in 2010–2011, which reminded
the world of that disease's persistence and its very rapid transmission. More recently in
2013, the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa showed the dramatic impact such diseases
can have on the state. Ebola virus affected workforces so badly that it curtailed the ability
of government to carry out its core functions. It also showed how the response could
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disrupt societal relations when particular social, political, religious or ethnic groups were
prioritized or discriminated against in receipt of treatment. In 2015, the Middle East
respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea demonstrated the
interconnectivity between the Middle East and East Asia. With the increase in global
travel, it became apparent that a transnational approach to NTS was needed as all these
outbreaks were framed as potential or actual threats to global health security.</IP>
<IP>However, while infectious diseases are now firmly framed as global security threats,
the number of deaths due to infectious diseases, including parasitic diseases and
respiratory infections, fell from 12.1 million in 2000 to 9.5 million in 2012. Furthermore,
the proportion of deaths due to infectious diseases fell from 23% to 17% (WHO 2015).
Likewise, with HIV/AIDS, there were an estimated 35.3 million people living with HIV
worldwide in 2012. While this was an increase on previous years, it was due to more
people receiving antiretroviral therapy. The number of new HIV infections in 2012 was
2.3 million, showing a 33% decline since 2001 (UNAIDS, 2013). Linking the HIV/AIDS
pandemic to security is controversial because some scholars argue that securitization
allows states to prioritize funding for elites and militaries over vulnerable populations
and further discourage efforts to normalize social perceptions of HIV/AIDS (Elbe 2006:
119). Yet, infectious diseases remain a major global health security concern for several
reasons.</IP>
<IP>First, infectious diseases disproportionately affect younger people than do other
diseases – an estimated 26% worldwide of years of life lost. This is calculated by using an
average of the number of years someone would have lived had they not died prematurely
(WHO 2006). Second, infectious diseases weigh more heavily on certain regions than
others. In Africa they account for 50% of years of life lost compared to the Eastern
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Mediterranean where they account for 27%. The three most affected World Health
Organization (WHO) regions account for 81% of all deaths and 89% of all years of life lost
due to infectious and parasitic diseases worldwide (WHO 2015).</IP>
<IP>Third, emerging infectious diseases – of which 60% are zoonotic, that is they have
origins in animals but are transmitted to humans – impose a significant burden on both
health systems and economies (WHO 2015). This is of particular concern now
interconnectivity between global economies means that there are increasing correlations
with other NTS factors, such as irregular migration, climate change, population growth,
and urbanization. Finally, the global health security threat of infectious diseases is
compounded by increased antimicrobial resistance further challenging efforts to control
them (WHO 2015). </IP>
<IP>The emergence of health as an NTS issue over the past 30 years was consolidated
when the direct causal link was made between infectious diseases and state and societal
instability. During this time, HIV/AIDS, SARS, H1N1, Cholera, MERS and Ebola outbreaks
have highlighted both the causal links to state and societal stability and the
transboundary nature of the threat, which raised the profile of health into an NTS issue
firmly in security discourse and on the global policy agenda as having a significant impact
in world politics today.</IP>
<IP>The emergence of health security has not generated a uniform approach but rather
two broad competing approaches. First, the geopolitical, geo-strategic or state-centric
approach, which can be characterized as a health sovereignty approach, sees health
security as a means to reassert national boundaries and to use the threat of infectious
disease to impose strict border controls, as well as to empower security and military
personnel to monitor and administer domestic control. Second, the global health security
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approach, which contests the health sovereignty approach and instead argues for the
need for greater cooperation across and between different levels of global governance,
the need to empower an international agency to regulate health security (in this case the
WHO) and the need to build capacity at the national level for more effective infectious
disease surveillance measures. Overall, the global health security approach remains the
most salient in the security discourse on infectious diseases.</IP>
<IP>However, as an approach it fails to substantively address key challenges posed by
critical security scholars in that it does not empower people and communities but rather
allows for responsibility to be shirked by those in positions to administer better health
security (or health work). Furthermore, the creation of unaccountable global institutions
and the increase in technocratic approaches to real-world problems distances global
institutions and the debates in world politics away from those they affect. This
democratic deficit increases as outbreaks and responses become more complex. In sum,
while infectious diseases are identified as an NTS issue, addressing this insecurity
remains contested in world politics.</IP>
<H1>Transnational crime</H1>
<UIP>Transnational crime has emerged as a key issue in world politics and is now firmly
part of the global security dialogue as states and societies face irregular migration and
maritime security threats among other issues. In 1974, the then United Nations Crime
and Criminal Justice branch first used the term ‘transnational crime’ to refer to particular
illegal acts that cross international borders. However, it was not until the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organised Crime was adopted in 2000 that an attempt
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was made to offer a more precise definition. The United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime (UNODC) notes in its definition that the Convention characterises ‘organised crime
groups’ most particularly by their profit-driven nature and the seriousness of the crime.
The transnational element is broadly defined as an offence committed in more than one
state, crimes in one state committed by groups that operate in more than one state, and
crimes committed in one state that has substantial effects in another state (UNODC 2016).
The convention mandated the UNODC to oversee the convention and its three protocols
on Trafficking in Persons, Smuggling of Migrants and Trafficking of Firearms and came
into force in 2003. Under this definition, the UN identified 18 crimes including: </UIP>
<EXT>money laundering, illicit drug trafficking, corruption and bribery of public
officials and of party official and elected representatives as defined in national
legislation, infiltration of legal business, fraudulent bankruptcy, insurance fraud,
computer crime, theft of intellectual property, illicit traffic in arms, terrorist
activities, aircraft hijacking, sea piracy, hijacking on land, trafficking in persons,
trade in human body parts, theft of art and cultural objects, environmental crime,
and other offences committed by organised criminal groups (Caballero-Anthony
and Hangzo 2010: 1). </EXT>
<IP>International conventions form part of the body of international law along with
treaty law that are regarded as ‘hard law’, which contractually binds state signatories.
This ensures that the contents of the convention are enforceable in those states and that
those governments will bring their national legislation into line with the contents of the
convention. As a result, the establishment of an international convention is regarded as a
substantive measure to try to address an issue. The establishment of a UN Office signifies
a mechanism through which to monitor and assist compliance with the convention and
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any protocols. Therefore, the presence of an international convention recognizes an issue
as of global importance and one for the UN to address as a potential threat to global peace
and security.</IP>
<IP>The UN Convention against Transnational Crime shows the severity of transnational
crime, the need for international cooperation and its clear identity as a global NTS threat.
Within the security and international relations discourse, there are two main approaches
to combat transnational crime. The first and most dominant approach focuses on ‘multi-
crime groups of professional criminals’, and the other focuses on the role of the ‘illegal
market’. The first approach is a more geopolitical or state-centric approach that focuses
on law and order through empowering national institutions to implement laws within
their own jurisdiction, and to cooperate with other national jurisdictions where
necessary. The second approach focuses on the flow of people and the role of the market
beyond the nation-state. It focuses on the movement of people and money around the
world, which often pays scant regard to national boundaries. This approach is holistic in
nature and looks at the root causes for the transnational criminal activity and attempts
to address them through focusing on vulnerable communities (Caballero-Anthony and
Hangzo 2010). While both approaches exist, just what it is that is being threatened by
transnational crime remains contested. Indeed, critical security scholarship argues
against further securitization or criminalization because it pushes people affected by the
crime further into the black market.</IP>
<IP>Whichever of these approaches is taken, it is now widely recognized that
transnational crime constitutes an NTS issue that affects human security and relations
between states and societies in world politics. Trafficking in persons is one of the high-
profile transnational crimes that has widespread public awareness. As the UNODC 2014
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'Global Report on Trafficking in Persons' notes, the crime of people trafficking is a global
phenomenon which affects every region in the world as countries constitute a country of
origin, transit or destination for trafficked persons. However, the report notes that richer
countries attract trafficked persons from different regions, whereas poorer countries are
mainly affected by internal or intra-regional trafficking flows (UNODC 2014: 7).</IP>
<IP>The two most common forms of trafficking in persons are for sexual exploitation and
labour. In 2011, trafficking for sexual exploitation was estimated to be 53% and
trafficking for labour purposes was estimated to be 40% of the total (UNODC 2014: 9).
There is also an increasing trend in trafficking for other reasons such as the trafficking of
children for armed combat, for petty crime or forced begging. These emerging areas of
trafficking in persons vary from continent to continent around the world. Trafficking for
sexual exploitation is the main form identified in Europe and Central Asia, whereas forced
labour constitutes the main form in East Asia and the Pacific; in the Americas both forms
of exploitation are identified on a near-equal basis (UNODC 2014: 9).</IP>
<IP>Since the UN Protocol against Trafficking in Persons came into effect in 2003, more
than 90% of signatory countries have criminalized trafficking in persons. However,
challenges remain as many of the countries that enacted legislation to combat trafficking
in persons retain laws that are difficult to enforce through poor design or do not fund
their law enforcement agencies adequately. Around 10% of signatory states still lack the
necessary legislation to combat trafficking in persons, which leaves some two billion
people without the protection outlined in the UN Protocol (UNODC 2014: 12).</IP>
<IP>For those with national legislation, only four in 10 countries reported 10 or more
annual convictions, and 15% reported no convictions at all (UNODC 2014: 13). Over the
past decade three types of traffickers have begun to emerge: small local operators,
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medium sub-regional operators and large transregional operators (UNODC 2014: 14).
These operations reflect the dynamics of trafficking in persons from the local to national,
sub-regional and global levels, which consequently identifies transnational crime as
multilevel in nature and as a significant challenge to national and international
institutions.</IP>
<IP>Sea piracy constitutes a second key transnational crime and NTS issue because the
threat is from a non-state actor outside a state’s territory. Sea piracy threatens maritime
security by jeopardizing the safety and well-being of seafarers, as well as the security of
commerce and navigation. The results of this threat include: loss of life, physical harm or
hostage-taking of seafarers, disruptions to commerce and navigation, financial losses to
ship owners, increased insurance premiums and security costs, increased costs to
consumers and producers, and damage to the marine environment (UN, 2012). The UN
Convention on Transnational Organized Crime further covers maritime crime that
includes ‘the use of the high seas to perpetrate transnational organised crimes such as
smuggling of persons or illicit substances’ (UNODC, 2015). As over 90% of global trade
is carried by sea, the economic effects are particularly significant. While the UN
Convention on Transnational Organized Crime covers maritime crime, the UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which was adopted in 1982 and came into
force in 1996, established a comprehensive legal regime covering all aspects of the seas
and oceans. This convention illustrates the transnational dynamic of the global security
architecture and the global commons of the high seas. As the high seas fall outside the
bounds of the international state system it is a notable example of where international
cooperation is needed in world politics.</IP>
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<IP>The different approaches to maritime security reflect the varied threat levels that
sea piracy poses to international peace and security. The militarized or traditional
security approach faces notable obstacles in the lack of sufficient enforcement
mechanisms for intervening forces. The transnational dynamic is further illustrated
through the development of a regional piracy prosecution model in the Indian Ocean with
assistance from UNODC, in response to the high levels of piracy off the Horn of Africa in
2007–2008. For example, this model sees the development of national legislation
criminalizing sea piracy and allows prosecuting states to formalize transfer agreements
with naval forces who operate in the Indian Ocean such as Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius
and the Seychelles and are willing to prosecute sea piracy cases (UNODC, 2015). This has
seen sea piracy around the Horn of Africa drop significantly from 237 incidents in 2011
to 15 in 2013 (IMB, 2015). However, the multidimensional approach taken by interested
states saw an additional focus on capacity-building activities in regional states like
Somalia, which accounted for the drop in attacks. Thus a transnational approach that
focuses strategies at different levels of governance appears to be particularly effective at
managing this NTS issue.</IP>
<IP>The transnational approach recognized not only that traditional enforcement
measures needed to be put in place but also that sea piracy was a symptom of the
breakdown of Somalia’s political system and that there was a need to develop state
capacity (World Bank, 2013). The first six months of 2015 saw no reported sea piracy
incidents off the coast of Somalia, or the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea or Arabian Sea. However,
sea pirate attacks in South East Asia reached a 12-year high in the same period. Indonesia
accounted for 54 incidents but of a markedly different nature. Rather than the high profile
sea piracy seen in the Indian Ocean, Indonesian attacks accounted for low-scale piracy
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where ships were boarded and the crew were held at knife point to gain access to money
or goods (Johnson 2015). The fluctuations in the number and scale of pirate attacks off
the Horn of Africa and in South East Asia illustrate the need to develop holistic responses
to maritime security, reinforcing the need for a cooperative and multi-layered approach
to find a sustainable solution.</IP>
<IP>Through the examples of trafficking in persons and sea piracy, it is evident that
transnational crime does pose a NTS threat to global peace and security. However, the
case of sea piracy also illustrated the role of the military in non-traditional security where
surge and enforcement capacity is utilized in the absence of political security in Somalia.
While the source of the security threat was non-military in nature, as a non-state armed
actor pirates pose a significant direct NTS threat to both seafarers and commercial
activity.</IP>
<H1>Energy security</H1>
<UIP>Nation states have long framed energy as a security issue. However, energy
understood from an NTS perspective broadens the understanding of energy security to
include the implications for society and people. Historically, many wars have been fought
between states over access to natural resources to fuel economic development. However,
the geopolitical or state-centric approach often overlooks the attempts to influence just
what it is that constitutes energy security. This raises the question: for whom has energy
been securitized? The securitization of energy has a long history of being framed solely
as a geo-political or statist security issue (Hashimoto and Bozhilova 2013). Yet
understanding energy as an NTS issue and applying a transnational approach is much
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more recent. Indeed, in the 1994 UNDP Report on New Dimensions of Security, energy
security, like health security, is absent from the conceptualization of human security.
However, the construction of energy security as an NTS issue uncovers the implications
it has for both state and society. It offers an alternative approach to energy security to the
geopolitical, geo-strategic or state-centric approach.</UIP>
<IP>Given the location of the birth of human security in the UNDP, it is firmly linked to
the notion of sustainable development. As such this alternative understanding of energy
security seeks to address more fundamental questions over the longer-term challenges
to more equitable energy access. To better understand the emergence of energy security
as an NTS issue this section assesses two international institutions established to regulate
energy.</IP>
<IP>The International Energy Agency (IEA) was established in 1974 ‘to help countries
coordinate a collective response to major disruptions in the supply of oil such as the crisis
of 1973–1974’ (Scott 1994). This global institution falls outside of the UN system and is
‘an autonomous organisation that examines the full spectrum of energy issues and
advocates policies that will enhance reliability, affordability and sustainability of energy
in its 29 member countries and beyond’ (Scott 1994). Even more tellingly about the
origins of the geo-strategic approach to energy security, the membership of the
organization is limited to developed countries that can demonstrate they are net oil
importers that have reserves of 90 days of the previous year’s average net oil imports to
which the government has immediate access if needed.</IP>
<IP>Likewise, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), another international
institution created in 1957 ‘in response to the deep fears and expectations resulting from
the discovery of nuclear energy’. Again, while it has a larger membership than IEA with
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81 member countries which approved the IAEA Statute in 1956, it falls outside of the UN
system and the realm of global governance as seen through the UN. Both these
institutions were created out of a sense of state insecurity, in the first instance felt by
developed countries that were dependent on oil imports to maintain their economy and
that faced economic collapse should access dry up. In the second instance, it was felt by
countries who were insecure about the dual use of the development of nuclear energy for
both civilian and military purposes, or, simply put, the development of nuclear power
plants and nuclear weapons.</IP>
<IP>However, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development
(WCED) published ‘Our Common Future’ in 1987, also known as the Brundtland Report,
in which the term ‘sustainable development’ was coined to mean development that meets
today’s needs without compromising future generations to meet their own needs (WCED,
1987). It was at this point that the understanding of energy security broadened and
actors began to offer a non-traditional approach by linking energy to other ‘new’ security
issues. Then five years later the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) committed signatories to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the
premise that global warming exists and man-made CO2 emissions caused it. It was
followed two years later with the 1994 UNDP Report that launched the concept of human
security. The UNDP Report identified the environmental security threat of nuclear
disasters like the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, which saw an explosion and fire at the
nuclear power plant release large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere
and spread over Europe and the Western USSR with 31 deaths during the accident and
longer-term effects still unclear.</IP>
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<IP>While the security threat posed by nuclear energy was acute, the global movement
to address climate change identified a chronic energy security threat brought on by
states’ and societies’ dependence on fossil fuels. Throughout the 1990s the link between
energy security and environmental security became interdependent through sustainable
development. However, while the impact of the use of fossil fuels on environmental
security became clearer the sustainable development debate continued. There was
reluctance by developing states to forgo what they saw as their sovereign right to
economic development that the developed world had already achieved. Many developing
states saw the pursuit of alternative energy sources to fuel their economies as inadequate
to achieve their development goals. Indeed, the ongoing fractious negotiations within the
UNFCCC continue today (see Gordon and Paterson, Chapter 10). The most recent COP-
21 meeting held in Paris, 2015, reached agreement after long negotiations ‘to set a goal
to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the
temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels’
(UNFCCC 2015). This global agreement can only be achieved at the national level assisted
by multilateral arrangements, once again highlighting the need for a transnational
approach.</IP>
<IP>In South East Asia, electricity generation by source in 2011 was gas 44%, coal 32%,
renewables (hydro, geothermal, bioenergy and others) 14% and oil 10%. If the current
plans proceed, then by 2035 this regional energy mix will have altered to coal 48%, gas
28%, renewables (hydro, geothermal, bioenergy and others) 20%, oil 2% and nuclear 2%
(Caballero-Anthony et al. 2014: 1). Key questions now remain unanswered as to whether
plans such as these in the developing world will meet the obligations agreed at COP-21
in Paris.</IP>
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<IP>As states and societies pursue energy security, its interdependence with other
security issues, most notably here with environmental security, and its transnational
dimension will shape the debate on energy security in world politics. In concurrence with
other NTS issues, the dominant approaches to energy security revolve around
geopolitical, geo-strategic or state-centric and transnational approaches. Realist
arguments are often articulated as energy independence in contrast to the more global
security or liberal internationalist approach, which promotes energy interdependence,
interdependence with other security issues and the need for international cooperation
(Luft and Korin 2009).</IP>
<IP>However, the critical approach to security unpacks these arguments to better
understand whose energy security is being pursued and at what cost to whom. It is with
this approach that the researcher uncovers the societal impact of energy security and
identifies who the main beneficiaries are of particular energy security practices. In the
coming months and years, the debates over the sustainability of energy security will
continue but it is clear from the current global climate of world politics that energy
security has emerged into the discourse as a NTS issue. Energy security has garnered
particular salience in contemporary world politics with its association with sustainable
development and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.</IP>
<H1>Food security</H1>
<UIP>Food emerged as a NTS issue in the aftermath of the Cold War and was identified
as one of the seven pillars of human security by the 1994 UNDP Report New Dimensions
in Security. In the 1994 Report, Mahbub ul Haq defined food security as ‘the means for all
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people at all times to have both physical and economic access to basic food’ and that food
security is an entitlement (UNDP 1994: 27). Within the human security definition, food
security is an intrinsic but not sufficient condition of security because of its universal and
interdependent nature. Ul Haq further pointed out in the 1994 report that the overall
availability of food in the world is not the problem; rather the problem is often poor
distribution and lack of purchasing power by people and communities (UNDP 1994: 27).
This understanding of food security focuses on the security of households and social
groups using the individual as the principal level of analysis.</UIP>
<IP>However, the substantive meaning of food security emerged after the Second World
War with the establishment of the UN system. The Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations (FAO) was established in 1945 as a permanent organization for food
and agricultural development. Subsequently, in 1960 US President Dwight Eisenhower
proposed to the UN General Assembly that the UN establish a mechanism to provide food
aid. As a result, in 1963 the World Food Programme (WFP) was also established as part
of the UN system.</IP>
<IP>Initially established for three years, the WFP began operations immediately with
three significant missions. It began work in the aftermath of the 1962 Buin Zahra
earthquake in Iran, which killed over 12,000 people, injured over 2,500 people and made
over 21,000 houses uninhabitable (USGS 2009). This was followed by Tropical Storm
Harriet in October 1962 that caused a landfall in Thailand, killed over 800 people and
displaced over 10,000 people (Vongvisessomjai 2009: 216). Concurrently, the WFP was
also tasked with assisting a newly independent Algeria which was resettling five million
refugees (WFP 2016). All three mirrored the acute strand of food security, while chronic
issues of food security were overseen by the FAO.</IP>
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<IP>However, it was not until 1994 that the WFP executive board agreed a mission
statement that reflected its role to provide food aid as one of the many instruments ‘to
promote food security’. Subsequently in 1999 the executive board resolved to support
development as well as emergency activities, which operationalized the two human
security foundational components of ‘freedom from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’ for the
organization.</IP>
<IP>Alongside the WFP, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was
established by the UN in 1977 as a major outcome of the 1974 World Food Conference to
finance agricultural development projects primarily for food production in developing
countries. The conference also recognized that famine was not solely created by
inadequate food production but was rather a consequence of structural problems relating
to poverty and recommended adoption of an international undertaking on food security
in the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition (UN
1974).</IP>
<IP>While the ground was laid for the global governance of food security at the UN, food
security per se was not fully defined until the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, Italy,
which resolved that food security was a condition ‘when all people, at all times, have
physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their
dietary needs and food preferences for an active and health life’ (FAO 2006). The FAO
definition therefore may be interpreted to mean that food security can only be achieved
if the three basic dimensions of (1) food availability; (2) physical and economic access to
food; and (3) food utilization (diversity or nutritional value) are simultaneously met in
an effort to provide stability, a term often used independently as a unifying dimension by
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the FAO (Teng and Lassa, 2016: 116). While this approach dominates the food security
discourse in world politics, it is by no means alone.</IP>
<IP>A geopolitical, geo-strategic or state-centric approach to food security focuses on the
‘strategies of powerful interests, including states, to secure and maximise their control
over food supplies and food producing resources’ (Sheppard 2012: 195). It is in this sense
that many actors utilize the language of food security to ensure their continued benefit at
the expense of others. In the case of countries, a government may take control over arable
land from the local owners or tenant farmers in a nation-wide effort to become food
independent or in the pursuit of sovereignty over national food security. Government
intervention in the use of farmland is not limited to a focus on particular foods but also
other products like biofuel as part of an effort to alter its national energy mix.</IP>
<IP>This may take the form of nationalization of farmlands or establishment of particular
economic zones reserved for specialist producers in the name of attaining food security.
Likewise, multinational corporations also use the language of food security which range
from corporatization and amalgamation of farmlands to the pursuit of revenues from
patented inputs (Shepherd 2012: 198). One response was the food sovereignty approach
that came from civil society groups like La Via Campesina, which argues for people to take
control over their own food and its provenance, with a focus on localization and
democratic empowerment (Shepherd 2012: 198; Lassa, 2014). However, like food
security before it, this approach’s terms can be appropriated and articulated by
governments or other powerful actors for their own interest. This has taken place in the
Middle East and South East Asia, where most recently the newly elected Indonesian
President Joko Widowo hailed Indonesia’s food sovereignty which would guarantee it
produces enough rice of its own to ensure it is not dependent on rice imports (Lassa and
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Shrestha 2014), no matter how impractical, after the 2007–2008 Food Price Crisis
experience. </IP>
<IP>In the 2007–2008 Food Price Crisis, food prices increased by 1.5% a month and saw
the number of people with chronic hunger in the world rise by an estimated 75 million.
This brought the number of undernourished people to a staggering 923 million mostly in
the developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific (FAO in Teng and
Lassa 2016). As a result, a series of food riots broke out in over 40 countries which
demonstrated the acute impacts that chronic food insecurity can create for states and
societies (Kuntjoro et al. 2013). The Food Price Crisis of 2007–2008 also highlighted the
high levels of interdependence of world food trade and the absence of substantive
cooperative arrangements to ensure food access and supply. It also demonstrated the
impact of other non-traditional security issues on food security such as the impact of
biofuels on food production in the developing world. In the Asia-Pacific, these challenges
are found in the perpetuation of agrarian mythologies, the push back against economic
integration of rice markets, and regulatory barriers to adopting GM crops (Ewing 2013).
Like other non-traditional security issues, food security is appropriated by various actors
for its own ends. While this contestation continues, it is roundly accepted that food
security is an important NTS issue for states and societies and is now an important part
of world politics.</IP>
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<H1>Conclusion</H1>
<UIP>Over the past 50 years, NTS issues have emerged to stake out an important part of
the broader policy and scholarly debate about security. NTS is a key concept to
understand where climate change, resource scarcity, infectious diseases, natural
disasters, irregular migration, food shortages, trafficking in persons, drug trafficking and
transnational crime impact the security of states and societies. This chapter has identified
key bids and influences on the development and priority given to NTS in global debates
on security, and the importance of assessing security at multiple levels of analysis (local,
non-state, state, regional and global).</UIP>
<IP>While there are different motivations for particular issues to become NTS threats,
this chapter has focused on identifying the three broad approaches that broadly fit within
the paradigms of realism, liberalism and critical security studies. These three often take
a geopolitical or state-centric approach; a human security approach; or a critical security
approach. Within each particular debate there are emerging frames that signify particular
leanings, such as food sovereignty or food security, distinguishing the realists from the
liberals.<IP>
<IP>However, it is not always clear-cut. In this particular case, for example, food
sovereignty emerged as a response to global neoliberal policies as a means to empower
farmers and others who lost out to multinational corporations. The term has
subsequently been appropriated by governments in developing countries to justify
nationalistic policies to ‘rally around the flag’ rather than empower their farmers. It is
therefore important to reflect on who is using what term and for what ends, if we are to
better understand why and how particular issues emerge on to the security agenda. As
we approach the 2020s we will undoubtedly see the appropriation of more security terms
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for different ends. It is therefore incumbent upon us to question and investigate the
motivations and debates between different actors if we are to gain a better grasp of NTS
issues in world politics.</IP>
<H1>Guide to further reading</H1>
<UIP>Since the beginning of the new millennium, non-traditional security (NTS) studies
has emerged as an area of scholarship. In 2006, Mely Caballero-Anthony, Amitav Acharya
and Ralf Emmers edited a volume titled Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Dilemmas in
Securitisation published by Ashgate (London), which provides a comprehensive analysis
of the security environment in Asia but importantly focuses on the development of non-
traditional security challenges. As the field developed, a network of think tanks and
scholars in Asia came together to form the Consortium of Non-Traditional Security (NTS-
Asia) with funding from the Ford Foundation. Its website http://rsis-ntsasia.org/
provides a useful database of research articles and policy think pieces on NTS issues. For
more recent critical scholarship on NTS, Shahar Hameiri and Lee Jones wrote Governing
Borderless Threats: Non-Traditional Security and the Politics of State Transformation
published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. For more current affairs on particular
NTS issues, there is a wealth of reports and articles on IRIN http://www.irinnews.org/
which provides coverage of emergency events in development. Other useful resources
include official government documents like the Findings from Select Federal Reports: The
National Security Implications of a Changing Climate published by the US White House in
May 2015. Given the cross-cutting nature of NTS studies, many of the leading
International Relations and Security Studies journals cover the subject area but in
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particular Asian Survey, Cooperation and Conflict, International Studies Quarterly, Pacific
Review, and Security Dialogue have published notable articles on NTS.<UIP>
