In the Anthropocene, human beings are capable of bringing about globally catastrophic outcomes that could damage conditions for present and future human life on Earth in unprecedented ways. This paper argues that the scale and severity of these dangers justifies a new international criminal offence of ‘postericide’ that would protect present and future people against wrongfully created dangers of near extinction. Postericide is committed by intentional or reckless systematic conduct that is fit to bring about near human extinction. The paper (...) argues that a proper understanding of the moral imperatives embodied in international criminal law shows that it ought to be expanded to incorporate a new law of postericide. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper critically analyses current depictions of prevention and tries to offer a new theoretical reflection on the concept by reconstructing it on the basis of Jeremy Bentham’s writings on indirect legislation. It is my aim not only to explore Bentham’s concept of indirect legislation as an outstanding example of enlightened social/public policy, but also to show to what extent his thoughts might be a fruitful contribution to a necessary reconceptualization of current conceptions of prevention, which are heavily criticized by (...) many scholars. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether being “physically insecure” (being at risk of not continuing to meet one's physical needs in the future) should be thought of as a constituent of current wellbeing. In §1, it is argued that we cannot understand the value of security in terms of “freedom from fear”. In §2, it is argued that the reliablist approach to epistemology can help us to construct an account of why physical security is valuable, by relating security to the conditions of (...) agency for practically and epistemically limited animals. In §3, this argument is compared with other attempts to understand the value of physical security. In §4, the relationship between security and threats of rights violation is clarified. In §5, the epistemic analogy of §2 is used to suggest a difference between the concepts of “security” and “capability”. (shrink)

Do unknown and unrealized risks of harm diminish an individual’s well-being? The traditional answer is no: that the security of prudential goods benefits an individual only instrumentally or by virtue of their subjective sense of security. Recent work has argued, however, that the security of prudential goods non-instrumentally benefits an individual regardless of whether or not they enjoy subjective security. In this paper, I critically examine three claims about the way in which unknown and unrealized risks of harm might diminish (...) individual well-being: it frustrates a desire to be secure, it frustrates the enjoyment of modally-robust goods, and it undermines the ability to make reasonable plans. Ultimately, I argue that all three of these hypotheses are mistaken, but that they deepen our understanding of the ways in which subjective security is an important constituent of individual well-being. (shrink)

The harms of climate change are deeply uncertain. Though climate change will render most individuals more vulnerable to harm, many individuals will not actually suffer climate-related harms. In this paper, I argue that vulnerability to harms is itself a harm, because it undermines our enjoyment of the good of security. After some brief remarks on the concept of security, I give three reasons for thinking that depriving an individual of the security of basic goods harms them: it has a strong (...) contingent connection to fear and anxiety, it directly undermines their ability to make reasonable plans, and security may reasonably be valued as an end in itself. This suggests that one of our goals in determining climate policy ought to be mechanisms which ensure the security of basic goods. (shrink)

Freedom and security are often portrayed as things that have to be traded off against one another, but this view does not capture the full complexity of the freedom-security relationship. Rather, there seem to be four different ways in which freedom and security connect to each other: freedom can come at the cost of security, security can come at the cost of freedom, freedom can work to the benefit of security, and security can work to the benefit of freedom. This (...) paper analyses each of these connections in turn. It shows that particular understandings of freedom can help us to see particular connections between freedom and security. The practical examples used to illustrate these connections are drawn from the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be suggested that, in the face of challenges such as this one, taking into account all four connections between freedom and security can ultimately help decision-makers in upholding both. (shrink)

Este artículo describe y analiza el concepto de seguridad humana en el ámbito de Naciones Unidas y de las Relaciones Internacionales y su relación con la doctrina de la Responsabilidad de proteger. Pretendemos responder a las siguientes preguntas: ¿La utilización de la doctrina de la Responsabilidad de proteger amplía el concepto de la seguridad humana o lo reduce a su dimensión vertical? ¿El concepto de seguridad humana contribuye a la comprensión y enfrentamiento a la Trata de Personas? Con miras a (...) contestar estas preguntas, el artículo está estructurado en tres partes: en la primera parte, presentamos el marco teóricoconceptual de la seguridad humana con base en los documentos de Naciones Unidas y la teoría de las relaciones internacionales; en la segunda, desde la noción de la R2P, su contenido y práctica internacional, observamos su contribución para el concepto de seguridad humana; en la tercera, utilizamos el enfoque de la seguridad humana para una comprensión global de la Trata. (shrink)

The globalization process, even more obvious after the end of Cold War, offers the conditions to define human security, focusing on the normative priority of the impact of policies on the individual. The international space, transformed under the pressure of globalization, becomes relevant in the extent that an alternative discourse that encompasses all these transformations comes out. This new narrative transforms the individual in the referent object of security. The study stresses the main theoretical transformations appeared within the post-positivist framework (...) of analysis in order to identify the central components of the new understanding of security – human security. (shrink)