Human security, climate change, and migration

Abstract

This chapter addresses the issue of global security threats to humankind from a European perspective and argues that, to be effective, handling this type of threat requires a comprehensive and transnational response. It involves, moreover, not only international cooperation between states but also the engagement of international organizations and non-governmental organizations and the empowerment of people themselves, which to some extent means a new kind of multilateralism. The chapter is organized into three parts: the first one, offering a theoretical approach, traces the genealogy of the concept of security and seeks to identify the prevailing concept of human security; evolving from this theoretical framework, the second and the third parts deal with two case studies that occupy today the top of the European agenda: climate change and international migration.