Written Answers. - Human Security Network.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh
Question:
27
Aengus Ó Snodaigh
asked the
Minister for Foreign Affairs
if he will report on the progress made by the Human Security Network of which Ireland is a member since its first Ministerial meeting in Norway in 1999.
[26767/03]
The Deputy will be aware that the Human Security Network was established following the success of the Ottawa Process, where close co-operation between like-minded Governments and NGOs led to the successful conclusion of the landmines treaty.
The current Human Security Network members are Austria, Canada, Chile, Greece, Ireland, Jordan, Mali, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland and Thailand, with South Africa as an observer. It is considered that its transregional membership is a particular asset.
The network is an informal, flexible mechanism which seeks to approach security issues from the viewpoint of the individual's need to be free from fear and want, rather than from the more traditional state-centered perspective.
The network tends to concentrate on a limited number of priority issues in accordance with the interests of the country holding the Presidency. The current Presidency, Mali, has identified human rights education, children in armed conflict, small arms and light weapons, and gender in peacekeeping operations as priorities. The first two of these are a continuation of work done by the previous Austrian Presidency, under which the network published a manual on human rights education and delivered a statement on behalf of the HSN in the UN Security Council debates on "Women, Peace and Security". The medium term plan intended to guide Human Security Network's work in the period 2003-05 sets disarmament in the fields of small arms and landmines, as well as enhanced co-operation with the International Red Cross Movement among its priorities.
Mali will host a ministerial meeting of the network in Bamako in May 2004. Mali has indicated that in addition to the network's medium term priorities light weapons, non-state armed actors, gender perspective in peacekeeping and food security will be the subject of discussion.
