IPJ Lecture Series presents “Integrating Security, Development and Human Rights”

Michelle Darnall / Staff Writer / The USD Vista

How is it possible to craft human security in an insecure world? This was one of the many questions addressed by the Distinguished Lecture Series presented by the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice on Sept. 24. The theater was packed with members from the USD community including professors, faculty, staff, students and members of the international community to hear from distinguished speaker Louise Arbour, the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Arbour focused on human security in connection with the three pillars of the UN- security, development and human rights Arbour used analogies to explain these pillars: security is like concrete, it is strong and more than likely includes a military component; development, like steel is very durable; human rights, are like glass, in a constant state of fragility and sometimes not visible. While security and development have a long history in the U.N., human rights are more ambivalent.

Arbour emphasized that there must be a concentration on international human rights laws so that where major human rights violations occur, the international community must shift their focus and intervene when necessary.
Arbour concluded her lecture by saying that international legal order must restrain actions that put human security in peril, and this is the future of the fight for human rights advocates in the United States of America as well as worldwide.