Global Classroom 2017​, ''Securitisation and the Impact on Human Rights and Democracy: Human Security in time of Insecurity"

The increasing power and broadening scope of the security sector across the world point is an alarming trend that threatens human rights. In response the Global Campus network organised the fifth edition of the Global Classroom which examined “Securitisation and the Impact on Human Rights and Democracy.” The event, hosted by the Institute for Human Rights and Peace Studies of Mahidol University (IHRP) from 22 to 26 May in Bangkok, Thailand, brought together academics, researchers, and students to report on securitisation’s impact on human rights in the seven regions of the Global Campus network: Western Europe, South East Europe, Caucasus, Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, Africa, and the Asia Pacific.

The different teams of students and professors from the seven Regional Master’s programmes analysed the causes for the rise in securitisation in different regions and the civic responses, which can potentially help in responding to the challenges and risks linked to securitisation.  The areas of concern for this sector are broad: criminalizing immigrants, children, drug-users, minorities including indigenous people.

The Global Classroom included a field trip on 25 May to study migrant workers' rights in Mahachai seaport in Thailand, one of teh world’s largest fish processing zones employing hundreds of thousands of migrant workers. There was also a series of workshops on advocacy, programming and other skills necessary for human rights defenders and practitioners. The classroom ended on Friday 26 May with a public talk/press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (Fcct).

The conclusions of the Global Classroom were the need to protect civil society space where it is threatened, build alliances between communities and human rights defenders, and to propose an agenda for security that is not centred on armed national security but on human security. An alternative framework to the invention of threats and crises, and to the privatisation of the security sector, is the Agenda 2030 for development, democracy, reducing inequality and eradicating poverty. The Global Campus contributes to its implementation through its development of a more empowered global civil network.