KARACHI, Sept 2: The world can plunge into a century of war if global institutions are not built to bring globalization under an integrated policy and respect for law is not demonstrated.

This apprehension was voiced by Dr Paul Oquist, UNDP's senior governance advisor for Asia, while initiating discussion during the first working session of a three-day international workshop on human security here on Thursday.

The three-day workshop on "Human security: Global and regional perspectives" is being organized by the International Relations Department of Karachi University, in collaboration with the Hanns Seidel Foundation.

His contention was that "global institutions cannot be constructed in a unipolar world." "US has the opportunity to provide a century for global institution-building and subjecting itself to global laws, otherwise, we will have a century of war," he emphasized.

Dr Paul Oquist said national institutions had been weakened and a real global organization did not exist. He added that globalization without real global institutions was creating chaos.

Dr Oquist was of the view that war and the threat of war ranked among the most serious human security and human rights risks in the world. The new millennium, he said, had already witnessed an increase in armed conflicts and terrorism, adding that the danger existed that human rights could become another casualty of the war on terrorism.

"If globalization fails to deliver, humanity stands to lose out not only on forgone potential for better lives, but the status quo itself will be altered towards a more problematic and conflict prone future," he said.

The key pertinent issues that needed to be addressed at a global level with immediate effect were weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), environmental degradation, international finance and economics, and mass media and communication.

He said about 10,000 nuclear warheads in the US and the Russian federation posed a serious threat to the world and stressed that there cannot be human security if the WMDs continued to be made. More dangerous was their possession by groups and individuals indulging in militant and terrorist activities.

In the context of non-proliferation, the UNDP representative said it should be based on global disarmament as hyper-power monopoly would not work. The advent of globalization, he argued, had brought about negative effects that culminated in disenfranchised populations, rogue states, and a sole unilateralist hyper-power.

"This is the international vacuum where a broad-based international consensus is lacking and where 'national interests' and 'holy struggles' shrug aside global humanistic morals and value sets as well as human security.

This vacuum makes the world an extremely dangerous place where stockpiles of nuclear, biological, and nuclear weapons are abound and nations as well as terrorist organizations are striving towards acquiring these horrendous weapons capable of mass slaughter," he said.

The 21st Century global challenges and their solution required an integral, holistic human security framework that combines policy, institutional, and cultural analysis for sustainable human development across the globe, he added.

Syed Aamir Hameed's presentation was on "Environment and human security: global and regional dimensions" in which among other things he said that environmental changes would play a major role as a cause of conflict.

Dr Pervez Iqbal Cheema's paper on "Comparative Analysis of Traditional Security and Human Security" was read out by Prof Sikandar Mehdi in which he dealt mainly with the difference between traditional concept of security and human security.

Dr Alexander Nikitin of the Russian Federation, in his paper on "Intervention between global and regional organizations in security matters" referred to limitations, expediency and double standards of the United Nations and said the world body had failed to fulfil its obligations.

He then spelt out the structural module of a new paradigm for strengthening human security and the institutions of national security. Dr Yiannis Drossos from Greece in his paper on "Regional aspects of human rights protection: European Union European Convention" focused mainly on the legal and conceptual framework for 'human rights' which reflected the European approach.

Workshop director and registrar of Karachi University, Syed Sikander Mehdi, in his paper on "Peace research, peace movement and human security" emphasized that if a community was unable to respect its constitution, there can be no human security and there would be no respect for judicial and human rights.

Prof Mehdi said while the territorial state was withering away fast enough, the national security state was also on the decline. There was a stress on human security now.

However, the whole concept was being vitiated by projecting the view that human security was attainable through the fulfilment of basic economic needs only. This was a wrong conception, he said, adding there were cultural, social and political rights and needs which were no less important than economic rights.

Secondly, the concept was being increasingly viewed from post-9/11 tunnel vision and perspective. But, he pointed out that there was a world before 9/11 and this world lived on. It had acquired a new dimension in the post-9/11 era when campaigns in the name of combating terrorism were causing larger human insecurities all around the world.

Prof Mehdi said several human tragedies, including the tragedy of Afghanistan and Iraq, could have been avoided if the world had listened to the peace scholars and educators and opted for human security in place of the highly inflammatory, explosive, provocative and lethal concept of national security.

He was of the view that if King Zahir Shah had ruled through democratic dispensation and invested in education and other human development sectors, Afghanistan would not have faced the problems it faced now. Similarly, if Saddam had invested in education more than in weapons, he would not have waged war against Iran and he would not have met his fate.

Dr Mubarak Ali gave a historical perspective of war peace movements. Syed Jafar Ahmed dilated on the global movement for peace, justice and human security over the years, and more recently after the 9/11 tragedy. The workshop will continue on Friday.