Towards a Human Security Index for minorities: pursuing enriched minority protection

Security has become a recurring theme when addressing minority issues. Though minorities are often perceived as raising security concerns, the fundamental task is to ask ‘security for whom?’ and reflect on what in society really needs to be secured. Addressing this question, this contribution analyzes minority issues in terms of ‘human security’. Human security regards the need to guarantee the well-being of individuals, providing ‘freedom from fear,’ ‘freedom from want’ and ‘human dignity.’ I argue that a human security approach provides several insights to better deal with minority concerns, adding to the traditional goal of recognizing civil, political and cultural rights, a more comprehensive, holistic understanding of the needs and challenges faced by members of minorities. However, human security is a vague term that is not clearly operationalized. In this light, this contribution aims at discussing the implications of addressing minority protection from a human security perspective as well as developing an innovative human security index that applies specifically to cultural diversity issues and allows to measure the degree of human security provided to minorities.