In December 1998, the wake of the Asian financial crisis of the previous year, Japan's Prime Minister Obuchi delivered a policy statement in Hanoi in which he stressed the need to make the 21st century an age of peace and prosperity grounded on human dignity. In other words, we must make it a human-centered century. Since then, Japan has accorded high priority to human security in its foreign policy. In its Diplomatic Blue Book 2000, which will be issued tomorrow, Japan identifies the growing importance of human security concerns as one of the major developments in the globalized world. As a concrete manifestation of this priority, Japan proposed and facilitated the establishment of the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security in order to assist UN programmes in implementing worthwhile projects aimed at alleviating various human security concerns.
Some countries seem to focus solely on the first aspect.
For these countries, human security provides a conceptual basis for taking actions to preserve the life and dignity of individuals in conflict situations. This entails, for example, clearing anti-personnel mines, controlling traffic in and the availability of small arms, establishing international criminal courts and tribunals, and addressing the issue of child soldiers, etc. These are extremely important considerations in the context of the changing nature of conflicts in this post- cold war era. In Japan's view, however, human security is a much broader concept. We believe that freedom from want is no less critical than freedom from fear.