Project COVID-19: Cremation or Burial

What Does “Human Security” Inform Us
During the COVID-19 Pandemic? *Yukiko Nishikawa
Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University

This paper attempts to explore contentions between states’ robust disease prevention
measures and individual rights observed during the COVID-19 pandemic and examine
what the notion of human security informs us in encountering COVID-19. After
introducing the notion of human security, the paper identified two important effects that
COVID-19 has revealed in each country and around the world. By understanding theeffects, the paper explores contentions that have arisen between states’ measures
undertaken to prevent further spread of the pandemic and the rights of individuals. Basedon these explorations, it examines the true meaning of the notion of human security toprotect individual’s rights and diversity of the society in threat contexts like the pandemic.

1. Introduction
The concept of human security which once gained fanfare and was soon criticized due toits ambitious and all-encompassing nature, which limits operationalization, has now redraw attention as a useful framework to protect the vulnerable people in a time of COVID19. In 2020, for example, the United Nations (UN) released a newsletter titled “theimportance of human security in an age of COVID-19.”1 The newsletter featured diverse
voices by Nobel laureates and thought leaders to utilize human security to tackle thepandemic. Many scholars would have been indeed reminded of the concept of humansecurity in encountering varied challenges brought by COVID-19.
Beyond the significant loss of life, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a rise in
unemployment, suicide, and economic crisis around the world. The sudden appearance ofan unknown coronavirus in early 2020, or some may say in late 2019, exhibited that it is
not merely a health crisis but series of crises that touch on people’s survival, wellbeing,
livelihood, and dignity. The pandemic demonstrated that we are indeed in the middle of9Project COVID-19: Cremation or Burial

an all-encompassing threat. In other words, the notion of human security that made us
realize inextricable links among diverse threats surrounding us is not an unrealistic or
hedonistic concept like once criticized, but it is a warning notion that one threat canpotentially damage one’s life, wellbeing, livelihood, and dignity at the same time byleading a series of crises.
This paper attempts to explore contentions and dilemmas between state policy
choices to prevent further spread of COVID-19 and individual rights highlighted during
the COVID-19 pandemic and examines what the notion of human security informs us inencountering COVID-19. It particularly focuses on revealing how individual
cultural/religious rights and state decisions based on robust disease prevention systems
and economic systems have become threats toward another and affected our wellbeing
with knock-on effects.

2. Human Security Revisited
The notion of human security came to be well-recognized in 1994 when the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP)’s Human Development Report introduced the concept.
In the report, security was equated with people rather than territories, denoting
development rather than arms (UNDP 1994). It focused more on sustainable humandevelopment and human security as a new form of development cooperation. The notion
was then more elaborated by a renowned report, Human Security Now, published by theCommission on Human Security. The report emphasized the importance of the security of
individuals for effective security measures together with the security of the state (CHS2003). One of the striking issues in the report was to advocate for such issues as the
security of an individual in terms of his or her ‘vital freedom’ for empowering people on
the move, protecting people, and aiding those dealing with economic security.
Since the 1990s, a plethora of books and articles have been published that feature
the concept of human security both in theory and practice. While most issues covered
under the notion of human security have been in the effort of UN activities as demonstrated
in such reports as ‘In larger freedom’ and ‘We the peoples’ by Kofi Annan, among others,
in reality, security and development have been handled by different agencies and as aseparate agenda until the end of the 1990s. This is largely because of operationalrationality based on the division of labour. The notion of human security had, in a sense,
become a wake-up call for those who are involved in development and security-related10

Yukiko Nishikawa: What Does “Human Security” Inform Us During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

work in a real context, where the demarcation of security and development is notnecessarily useful nor makes any sense.
The notion of human security was formally agreed upon at the UN General
Assembly in September 2012 (UN General Assembly A/66/763).2 At that time, it madeclear ‘the right of people to live in freedom and dignity, free from poverty and despair. All
individuals, especially vulnerable people, are entitled to freedom from fear and freedom
from want, with an equal opportunity to enjoy all their rights and fully develop their humanpotential’ (UN 2016). The inclusion of dignity in the notion of human security waswelcomed by many non-governmental organizations, as it includes intended andunintended discrimination, harassment, and social deprivation, both material and nonmaterial.
Nevertheless, in over thirty years since the international appearance of the concept
in the 1990s, before the COVID-19 pandemic, few books explore human security inrelation to a pandemic or public health. For example, while an edited volume comprisedof 25 chapters, Routledge Handbook of Human Security (Martin and Owen eds. 2014),
covers various issues related to the notion of human security, such as conflict, war, food,and natural disasters, it does not include any topic related to infectious diseases, publichealth, or pandemic. Even some books that focused on Africa also miss relevant topics
related to public health or infectious diseases, although the continent has been in serious
threat to public health due to the spread of Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever (Ebola) or humanimmunodeficiency virus (HIV).3 Whilst public health has been considered a part of the
security agenda,4 health issues were rarely studied in the framework of human security
until we encountered the real threat arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

3. Implications of COVID-19 for Human Security
Why did the notion of human security come to draw attention again after the COVID-19
pandemic? What key implications in relation to human security can we extract from the
COVID-19 pandemic in our society? While the notion of human security had developedin diverse contexts by the 2000s, the COVID-19 pandemic and following economic andsocio-political drawbacks also help us to review the notion of human security. This section,
therefore, identifies two important effects that we have observed as a result of thepandemic in 2020. These effects entail important implications for reviewing the meaningof human security in an age of COVID-19.

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Project COVID-19: Cremation or Burial

The Revealing Effect
The crisis brought by COVID-19 was not a crisis that some scientists or institutions had
not foreseen. Although transnational health threats are always invisible, they come fromeverywhere in the globalized world. In fact, as an objective reality, all individuals,
irrespective of their status, class, nationality, race, and gender, are potentially threatenedby transnational health threats as we’ve just experienced. In the past several decades, there
were also sporadic public health threats at different times and in varied regions, such as
SARS, MERS, H1N1, and Ebola. Nevertheless, the real effects of such threats arising fromtransnational public health are diverse and not all people were equally at risk. The COVID19 pandemic has exhibited the reality that some are more at risk, depending on where they
live, what nationality they have and what social status they have, and in some places theirreligion, ethnicity, or economic and social status did matter. In other words, inequality,
asymmetries, and hierarchies in human relations within each county, as well as in therelations between states, matter. Such inequalities and asymmetries have become evident
when the vaccine for COVID-19 has become available only in certain countries in 2020.
Nonetheless, such inequality, asymmetries, and hierarchies are not new even ininternational relations. The COVID-19 pandemic merely highlighted the pre-existing
structural conditions within each country and in the global context through the way theeffects of the disease appear, the access to treatment, and the access to vaccination. Thisis largely because international relations and domestic socio-political and economic
structures are often shaped by varied power relations, including gender, race, ethnicity,and religion, among others. For example, in Thailand, it has become apparent that it was
migrant workers, mostly from Myanmar, who suffered most from COVID-19 in the second
wave of infection in the country,5 while in Singapore, migrant workers were infected by
COVID-19 at three times the average domestic rate (HRWG 2020).6 Singapore’s foreign
workers are low-wage migrant labourers mostly from South Asia and are largely employedin the manufacturing and construction sectors. In these countries, COVID-19 flourishedin long-repressed populations who have been left in ill-treatment. For that reason, COVID19 has a ‘revealing effect’, which highlights those who have been in poor treatment ineach society or country.
Even in some countries where there is no such pre-existing marginalization or
discrimination against minority groups, the pandemic has enhanced the existing social orpolitical divisions in each county. Dr. Joyce Dalsheim, a guest speaker of this research
project, indeed pointed out that wearing a mask is now used to show the political position

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Yukiko Nishikawa: What Does “Human Security” Inform Us During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

of the person in the United States (US). 7 The comment illustrates how pre-existing
political divisions, as demonstrated by the 2020 presidential election in the US, wereaffected by COVID-19 because political leaders’ approaches and measures to handle
COVID-19 were politicized or used as political tools to obtain and express support. It is
commonly seen in any country that certain elements are utilized as political tools ingeneral and in crisis contexts, in particular, because policy choices directly affect people's
wellbeing and living. Accordingly, socio-political divisions, discrimination, or
marginalization are likely to be more highlighted along the pre-existing fault lines in eachsociety in threat contexts or emergency situations.
The Knock-on Effect
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that local solutions vary even within each country andacross countries. Some countries imposed mandatory lockdowns, while other countries
took more voluntary measures to limit the spread of coronavirus. Accordingly, although
the objective conditions brought by COVID-19 were initially shared by all people aroundthe world, some analysts argue that the way each government handled the situation
resulted in significantly different effects on individuals and, as a result, some effects wereconsidered an outcome of the government’s policy-choices and decisions. Therefore,
certain aspects of suffering, though originated from the COVID-19 pandemic, wereconsidered man-made.
In such a broader context, in which the state policy choices significantly affectone’s life, there were also various types of knock-on effects observed around the world
during the pandemic in 2020. To grasp knock-on effects, as explored in the previous
section, pre-existing conditions, both in terms of the structural and procedural, bear great
importance. This is because those suffering most from COVID-19 were often those whohave been socially, economically, and culturally marginalized in each country, although
they might have not been so clearly observed before the pandemic. The failure ofSingapore’s response to COVID-19 was, for example, principally caused by its long
history of the deprived treatment of migrant workers who have been unprotected and left
out from any protection from the country. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated job
security, labour rights, and wage-related issues for migrant workers, although the roots ofthese issues exist in the pre-pandemic policies of the country, which ignored the rights andwellbeing of migrant workers (HRWG 2020: 114). In Japan, a Japanese newspaper
reported that women’s suicide rate significantly increased in the second wave of the13Project COVID-19: Cremation or Burial

COVID-19 infection in 2020.8 Some analysts pointed out that Japanese women’s multiple
responsibilities at home as a mother, wife, and daughter-in-law, in addition to their
responsibility at the workplace, have been exacerbated by varied changes as a result of
measures undertaken in response to the pandemic while many women lost their jobs, often
fixed-term or part-time, due to the deteriorating economy during the pandemic. Japanesewomen's job security, employment opportunities, and their wellbeing were seriously
affected by the pandemic and governmental measures undertaken for robust control of thepandemic.
The effect of COVID-19 is, therefore, not merely on direct health-related issues
but also on economic, social, and cultural-related issues and severely impacts the mostvulnerable groups of society because the pandemic has affected the global economy, thus
deteriorating domestic economies, threatening individual job and wage security, affecting
individual wellbeing, and ultimately endangering mental and psychological security. Sucha series of crises are considered a ‘knock-on effect’ of COVID-19. Moreover, due largely
to the nature of the pandemic, it enhanced xenophobic and discriminatory tendencies
towards such groups as foreigners, including migrants, refugees, and temporal visitors.
Discrimination and marginalization increased towards various minorities, whether ethnic,
religious, sexual, or linguistic, as they have been considered ‘others’ even before thepandemic.
While many people suffered from socio-economic effects arising from the COVID19 pandemic to varying degrees, measures undertaken to handle COVID-19 more
seriously affected the vulnerable people of each country, who have experienced the knockon effect in multiple ways.

4. The Inevitable Contentions
The focus of this research project must be also discussed in a deep understanding of theabove-mentioned revealing and knock-on effects of COVID-19. In most countries, policy
choices are made by political leaders who dominate and control laws, institutions, andpublic policy choices under the state system or in a sovereign state. Irrespective of theform of governance and the relationship between state and religion, in many countries, thelegal and procedural measures adopted by the authorities to prevent COVID-19 haveaffected the practice of religion around the world.
Even in secular states, it is commonly seen that national legislation contains legal

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Yukiko Nishikawa: What Does “Human Security” Inform Us During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

norms that guarantee the freedom of individual beliefs and religion, which assumingly
includes such practices as collective worship and other religious practices. There are,however, certain limits, usually inherent in the national legal framework in relation to thefreedom of religion, because it is common for most countries to include the fundamental
rights of other persons in their constitutions. A distinction exists on the point that somecountries take legally binding measures with possible punishments in cases of violation,
while other countries are not equipped with such legally binding measures. What measures
can be undertaken by the government in countries that have no constitutional or legal
regulations, therefore, depend on the political decisions to be taken that frame the laws
and institutional mechanisms in threat contexts.
In varied threat contexts in each state, the rights of individuals are often restrictedby such constitutional measures of ‘public welfare’ or ‘national security.’ Therefore,
contentions are inevitable between the rights of individuals and what may be termed‘public good’ or ‘social welfare.’ On this point, the World Health Organisation (WHO), in
fact, made a statement that ‘[a]ll countries must strike a fine balance between protecting
health, minimizing economic and social disruption, and respecting human rights.’9 It was
indeed not only the WHO but also many others, including the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights and UN experts, who emphasized the importance of respecting the rights
of individuals, particularly minorities and marginalized people during the pandemic. As
illustrated by these warnings by international organizations, contentions between
governmental measures taken for public good or national security and the rights ofindividuals in each country are commonly seen in emergency or threat contexts.
There have been two important phenomena commonly observed around the worldconcerning the contentions between the rights of individuals and the COVID-19 response,
although different degrees. Firstly, in countries that have been in a protracted conflict
between the state and non-state groups, where marginalization of particular groups havebeen recognized, the public health emergency arising from COVID-19 exhibited clearer
tendencies of quashing dissent or targeting particular groups or individuals, such as
Uighurs in China and the Shincheonji Church (a marginalized religious group) in South
Korea (USCIR 2020: 2-3). The rights of individuals of particular groups or non-state
actors against the state have not been protected. Secondly, even in countries that have hadno such conflict or authoritarian tendencies, the government’s policies or decisions tended
to put more weight on robust measures to control the pandemic based on scientificevidence with evidence-based policy choices for ‘public good.’

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Contentions are inevitable under the state system, regardless of the nature of thethreat, as an individual’s needs, desires, and beliefs do not always meet with collective
social, political, or economic good and gains. For this reason, the discourse of national orstate security has been dominant in both theory and practice in threat contexts in order toprotect many or the majority for maintaining support and legitimacy of the state. In mostcountries, the constitutions contain such collective security clause(s) as national security
law, emergency decree, or a clause of public or social welfare to take strong measures incases of emergency while also including such clauses as the rights and duties ofindividuals or human rights. Nonetheless, what constitutes threats for national security
and emergency are usually not clearly defined in the constitution and thus it highly
depends on political judgment in each context. The members of the ‘political community’or a sovereign state are, in that sense, expected to find an appropriate or pragmatic balance
between national security and individual rights at each time, depending on the nature of
the threat and available choices among other conditions surrounding them, and thus
decisions for measures to be taken are often politicized for the benefit of influential orparticular groups in the process.
Religious Freedom in a Time of COVID-19
The above-mentioned contentions and dilemma are observed between measures
undertaken for robust prevention of COVID-19 and religious freedom. Many national andlocal governments as well as religious authorities indeed grappled with how to balance
religious freedom and measures undertaken to fight against the coronavirus. Whilereligious gatherings are vital for people to share and practice their beliefs, they easily
become sites for the spread of COVID-19. By the same token, as this research projectprincipally addresses, specific and meaningful customs around death, which every religion
has, consist of the right of individuals and religious freedom while public health measuresin countering COVID-19 resulted in limiting these rights.
Varied religions have their protocols for cleaning the body to features of thefuneral service, which includes religious obligations. Even simply exploring the practiceof cremation vis-a-vis customs and traditions among different religions, some religions do
not practice cremation and even some of them prohibit cremation 10 . Nevertheless, intaking robust preventive measures against COVID-19, the right of individuals or religious
freedom exemplified by non-cremation fell into a dilemma as cremation has become theonly choice in some countries due largely to public health considerations. This is exactly
what has been previously discussed: contentions between public health considerations
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Yukiko Nishikawa: What Does “Human Security” Inform Us During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

symbolized as ‘national’ security and religious freedom or the right of belief epitomized
by human security.
In the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), freedomof religion is guaranteed (Article 18). However, countries usually allow restricting
religious freedom by law when necessary in, for example, the state of emergency or for alegitimate state interest. For this reason, the balance between national security
considerations and human security considerations is vital. Religious freedom is so
fundamental that some activists emphasize the derogation of the right even in times ofpublic emergency. In some countries, governments, in fact, asked religious groups tovoluntarily undertake necessary measures to limit the spread of COVID-19. Governments
must balance the fundamental right even in their efforts to counter the virus in order not
to target certain religious communities.

5. Concluding Remarks: Human Security for Inclusiveness andDiversity
The notion of human security appeared when state discourse was dominated bymanagement and control of security in threat contexts around the globe and within eachstate in order to more carefully examine such threat contexts from the individual to thestate perspective. Nonetheless, when an unknown security threat appears like theemergence of an unfamiliar coronavirus or indiscriminate terrorism, the discourse ofnational security tends to dominate over the discourse of individual security for prompt
actions and robust prevention of further threat(s) for ‘public good.’ The government’s
policy choice then unintendedly or intendedly marginalizes certain groups of people. The
COVID-19 pandemic indeed exhibited such tendencies of national security dominance ina sudden threat context. For this reason, analyzing the crisis from a human security
perspective together with a national security perspective is vital to identify who are left
out in the given policy choices and who need special care and attention to be protected. It
should not be misunderstood that the notion of human security does not categorically deny
the national security discourse. Instead, a human security perspective is to identify themost vulnerable groups in certain policy choices in a threat context and it is a way not toleave any person behind because those who are left behind are the ones who suffer fromthe most serious knock-on effects in threat contexts.
In that sense, the notion of human security is a warning sign for us that in situations

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where overt or extreme tendencies, mechanized rational choice for majoritarian good, or
rational policy choices ruled solely by scientific evidence for the benefit of a particulargroup of people are employed, often the majority may not always stand by diverse needs
and beliefs of the people. Achieving human security means finding a way forward withdiverse categories of people in a society who have different beliefs, needs, and values. The
human security perspective then will help us to know who is outside such beneficiaries
and what measures are necessary to include them under the given policy choices. In acertain context, an analysis from a human security perspective may urge a radical change
in the policies made from a national security perspective.
In the COVID-19 pandemic, a human security perspective helps us to know whoserights were restricted while robust prevention measures of COVID-19 have been
undertaken for public good by the government. The process for achieving human security
itself requires overcoming contentions and dilemmas between the realization of public
good and the protection of individual needs/rights. Accordingly, it is necessary to seek forappropriate balance between national and human security. Only in that way, we are able
to live in a county that values ‘inclusiveness’ and ‘diversity’, and only such counties andsocieties will be resilient to such tendencies of ‘exclusion’ and ‘uniformity’ that the people
tend to fall victim to in crisis contexts.

References
Berkmann, J. B. (2020) "The COVID-19 Crisis and Religious Freedom", Journal of Law,
Religion and State, 8(3): 179-200.
Brown, W. G., G. Yamey and S. Wamala (eds.) (2014) The Handbook of Global Health
Policy, Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.
Commission on Human Security (CHS) (2003) Human Security Now, New York: CHS.
Glover, J. (2001) Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, New Haven andLondon: Yale University Press.
Human Rights Watch Group (HRWG) (2020) Repression and Resilience: COVID-19
Response Measures and Migrant Workers’ Rights in Major East and Southeast Asian
Destination, Jakarta: HRWG.
Martin, M. and Owen T. (eds.) (2014) Routledge Handbook of Human Security, London& New York: Routledge.

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Yukiko Nishikawa: What Does “Human Security” Inform Us During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

O'Manique, C. and P. Fourie (eds.) (2018) Global Health and Security: Critical Feminist
Perspectives, London & New York: Routledge.
Picard, A.L., T.F. Buss, T.B. Seybolt and M.C. Lelei (eds.) (2015) Sustainable
Development and Human Security in Africa: Governance as the Missing Link, Boca
Raton: CRC Press.
United Nations (UN) (2016) Human Security Handbook: An Integrated Approach for the
Realization of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Priority Areas of theInternational Community and the UN System, New York: UN.
UNDP (1994) Human Development Report 1994, New York: Oxford University Press.
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) (2020) "TheGlobal Response to the Coronavirus: Impact on Religious Practice and Religious
Freedom", Factsheet Coronavirus, March 2020, Washington D.C.: USCIRF.

* This is a preliminary draft. Please do not cite or circulate without the permission of the author.
Notes
1
The newsletter is accessible on the following site. <https://www.un.org/humansecurity/wpcontent/uploads/2020/09/United-Nations-Human-Security-Newsletter-Summer-2020-min.pdf>(accessed on 29 January 2021).
2"Follow-up to General Assembly resolution 64/291 on human security". Available online:<https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/N1228537.pdf> (12 February 2021).
3
For example, Sustainable Development and Human Security in Africa does not include issues
related to the public health or pandemic. See Picard et.al. (eds.) (2015)
4
See, for example, O'Manique and Fourie (eds.) (2018).
5
Information by Dr. Sriprapha Petcharamesree, a guest lecturer of this research project, who
lectured on "Between Medical Precaution and Religious/Cultural Rights for Performing the
Postmortem in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic" on 31 January 2021 (Webinar).
6
Singapore's daily report of the government on 22 June 2020 stated that 94.31% of the positive
cases of COVID-19 was at foreign worker dormitories and construction sites. See HRWG (2020)
Chapter 5.
7Her comment on 10 January 2021 at her lecture on 'Memory, meaning and pandemic in Jewish
Ultra-Orthodox Communities: what is essential?' (Webinar).
8
Although more thorough studies are required to identify the causes of such suicide, women's
multiple responsibilities as mother, wife, and daughter-in-law expected at home, along with thehigher ratio of temporary employment among women in Japan, are said to be some of the major
reasons for the increase in the number of suicides among women in the second wave of COVID19. See Tokyo Newspaper, 15 January 2021.
9
A statement made by the Director General on 11 March 2020. See the WHO website.
10 For example, Orthodox Judaism, Islam and the Eastern Orthodox Church do not cremate.

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