DRAWING INFERENCES OF HUMAN SECURITY IN MARITIME DIMENSION IN BANGLADESH: A GOVERNANCE PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The concept of security since long has been exclusively state and military centric
affairs. Particularly, the erstwhile Cold War era formed an enigmatic political
and psychological atmosphere in which security used to be defined in military
parlance only. The demise of the Cold War has brought a paradigm changes in
security thought process. Today, nations are also providing much importance on
the security of citizen rather than the state. Thus, the concept of ‘human security’
has taken the centre stage of the security milieu. Given the resource constraints
as well as increasing human demand on depleting land resources, exploration
and exploitation of the seas and ocean space is increasingly becoming important
for mankind especially for the maritime nations. Having huge stakes out at the
maritime domain, human footholds at sea is increasing exponentially, so does
the concerns for the human security at maritime regime.This is because various
human security issues as identified in the land like food security, health security,
environmental security, security against violence, crimes, political disorder and
instability etc. also equally find their presence in the maritime domain. Bangladesh
has a critical dependency on sea. Its economic activities are heavily dependent
on foreign export-imports. A large size of populations of the country lives
around coastal areas of the country Recently, Bangladesh has solved the maritime boundary disputes with its both maritime neighbours i.e. Myanmar and India
(ITLOS Verdict, 2012 and PCA Verdict, 2014). Due to these verdicts, and also due
to the contemporary phenomenon of exploiting ‘blue economy’, the maritime
domain of Bangladesh could draw much attention of the common mass in
general and policy makers in particular. But, the increase of human activities
at maritime domain in Bangladesh have also given rise to many illicit activities
such as piracy, armed robbery, trafficking of human beings, drugs, illegal arms,
threat to physical security of humans, ships and marine activities, degradation
of marine environment in an unbridled manner by different agents at sea. In
this connotation, it is perceived that like in the land domain, in the maritime
domain too, the good governance is considered to be the most suitable solutions
for resolving multifaceted human security issues. In this backdrop, the reconceptualization
of the security paradigms of Bangladesh in maritime domain
from mere state centric approach to the emerging human security approaches
focusing governance perspective has become essential.