An Ethics of Global Security

Doctors and global health security: what role for ethics and regulation?

“…47 Focusing on these issues stems from a central concern with examining how and why the shift towards securitizing political problems occurs, and what consequences flow for states and the global governance as a result. 48 While the identification of moral norms, including those informed by human rights, is useful in understanding the ethical dimensions of securitization at the global level, it is somewhat limited in offering insights into the how the relationship between ethics and security impacts medical practice in addressing health threats.…”

Contested Terrain: Reconceptualising Security in the Pacific

“…The questions of what constitutes a security problem, what is a risky situation, what and who poses threat to our lives, have been part of humanity's self-exploratory journey since time immemorial as we construct and adapt our identities and define our social boundaries. As globalisation incorporates disparate societies into a collective hegemonic embrace, security becomes fundamentally ethical in nature as we attempt to make sense of the diverse manifestations of threat at different levels-global, regional, national and local (Burke, Lee-Koo & McDonald, 2016). Many of these security issues will continue to haunt humanity in the future as long as the basic causes are insufficiently addressed or even ignored.…”

Rethinking militarism as ideology: The critique of violence after security

“…However, critical security studies is commonly divided into two sets of approaches: those that aim to reform the concept of security for progressive purposes and those that aim to move away from the logic of security either partially or wholesale. The first set of approaches has been exemplified by those seeking to redefine security as ‘emancipation’ (Booth, 1991, 2007; Wyn Jones, 2005), and more recently by cosmopolitan theorists seeking to systematize the ethical basis for security practices (Burke et al, 2014, 2016). The second set of approaches includes the Copenhagen and Paris Schools and some feminist, post-colonial and Marxist approaches, which together broadly share the aim of the ‘desecuritization’ of politics on the grounds that security tends towards exclusionary, emergency or violent political modalities (e.g.…”

“…Responding to critiques of securitization in their cosmopolitan approach, Burke, Lee-Koo and McDonald are more sensitive to these dangers, admitting that the use of force can entrench conflict and thus impair the longer term pursuit of global security (Burke et al, 2014: 19–21). In response, they argue that the ultimate aim of security practice should always be nonviolence, ‘a gradual but determined demilitarisation of global politics’ in which force is permissible under strict conditions but always regrettable – ‘a pacifism of ends rather than means’ (Burke et al, 2016: 74). They place their confidence in a set of detailed principles restricting the use of force in different circumstances, which they hope will help to avoid these risks (Burke et al, 2014: 71–97, 119–145).…”