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issue of conflict or blood diamonds; and Jubilee 2000, a movement advocating the cancellation
of the debts of heavily indebted poor countries. As will be explained in the literature review,
human security links security studies and development studies and blurs the distinction between
the two areas of research and policy. For this reason, it is important to include a case that
involves armed conflict (the Kimberley Process) and a case that centers on an issue traditionally
analyzed by students of development politics (Jubilee 2000). Looking at evidence from these two
cases, and reviewing research about a third case, namely that of the International Campaign to
Ban Landmines (ICBL), the paper, which is very much a work in progress, comes to the
preliminary conclusion that the available empirical evidence is quite mixed: While there are
definitely indications that global civil society is a major agent of change in the discourse and
practice of international security, it remains to be seen how far-reaching the influence of
transnational actors can be given the resistance to change in the international system.
2. Literature Review
The Nature of International Security
The point of departure for the ideas and arguments surrounding the nature of security and the
object of international security in the post-Cold War world is the increasing salience of a number
of global policy problems. These problems include, for example, environmental issues, and most
importantly from a human security perspective, issues that affect and often severely undermine
the quality of life of huge segments of the populations of countries in the global south. Scholars
calling for the adoption of a human security approach in the theory and practice of security
policy point to the growing gap between living standards in the global north and the global south,
Convention