Analyzing Key Issues of Security and Justice in the 21st Century

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the multifaceted security and justice issues that define the 21st century. It begins by highlighting the evolving nature of security threats, shifting from traditional military concerns to include human sustainability threats such as poverty, climate change, and disease. The essay emphasizes the impact of globalization, which has fostered both cooperation and conflict, exemplified by the rise of international terrorism. It explores various challenges, including economic disparities, the role of international organizations like the UN, and emerging threats like HIV/AIDS and climate change. Furthermore, the essay addresses issues such as the rise in world population, international migration, food security, water scarcity, malnutrition, and the impact of conflicts, corruption, and the changing nature of state power. Overall, the essay underscores the interconnectedness of these challenges and their profound effects on international and national security, advocating for a holistic approach to address these complex issues in the modern era.

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Issues of Security and Justice In The 21st Century
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ISSUES OF SECURITY AND JUSTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
In earlier days, the national security was completely centered on a strategy that the military
and the political leaders follow in their individual countries in order to defend their national interests,
keeping their focus on the military, economic, informational and diplomatic instruments of power.
With the passage of time, the world has increasingly become more independent and at the same time,
character and frequency of threats have increased largely. Human sustainability threats such as
Illiteracy, conflict, poverty, water scarcity, hunger and pollution are some of the major threats that are
still holding the top place in the global agenda in this 21st century (Aduloju and Pratt 2014). These
threats has become more complex and numerous and are crossing the national boundaries by
challenging the betterment of the humanity as a whole. In current days, the international security is
closely related with the concept of globalization and they are now considered the prime factors in
today’s economic and political situation.
The immense growth of globalization in the 21st century has provided both positive as well
as negative effects. It has become the greatest and most influential builder of a new global security
picture (Baylis and Smith 2003). The positive effect include that globalization has lead to more
effective cooperation between the nations upon various different issues involving cultural, economical
and political cooperation. However, these same issues have the negative effects as well. This
cooperation in between the different countries are resulting in the collision of different views, which
in turn is raising conflicts, as for example, the terrifying terrorist attacks of 9/11, which took place due
to the different views on same question- “who will rule?”
After the end of the Cold War, which took place more than a decade ago, an expectation of
dramatic improvement was there in the sphere of global as well as national security but this hope is
failed, as the emergence of new challenges has substituted the threat of the nuclear weapon with
civilization destruction (Heverin 2014). Although, these challenges and issues were existed in
previous days as well but in the 21st century i.e. the era of globalization, they have attained another
sounding, as the world has become far more interconnected and mutually dependent than ever before.
Hence, these challenges have turned to acquire a universal character rapidly, which in turn is creating
a threat to both international as well as national security and stability. In this period of 21 st century,

ISSUES OF SECURITY AND JUSTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
these issues and challenges, which are posed to the international and national communities, have
influenced the lives of many people belonging from different nations by putting an impact on the
facilitation and development of the relations in between nations. In this century, the global economy is
separated into two types of zones, which are of stagnation and growth. In the 1960s, the income of
20% of the richest of the total world’s population surpasses by only 30times to that of the 20% of
poorest, but as of 2017, the gap has trebled. The problems related to the unemployment, social
injustice, low wages, discrepancies etc. in the domain of especially culture and religion has
contributed immensely to the challenges of improvement in the international security.
One among the most critical issues that the world community is facing in the 21 st century is the
recognition of the state problems related to national as well as international security. As mentioned
earlier, the threat of international terrorism has become the greatest threat to the global security of
humankind. Therefore, there are several attempts made by the stakeholders in order to bring down or
to maintain those statuses of threats and to control them with the help of military force. On the other
hand, the danger of immigration to the societal security of a particular state in the 21st century is also
considered to be a threat, though not objective or universal but it is rather a subjective threat that is
dependent to the different ways in which the state that is receiving, defines itself.
In Africa, the UN system is playing a vital role in collaborating assistance of every kind in
order to help the country help itself. Right from encouraging the growth of various democratic
institutions to building of peace between the warring nations, it system is always present on the field
supporting the social and economic development and with the same, promoting and protecting the
human rights (Charvet and Kaczynska 2008). Apart from this, one of the major issues of security that
the word is facing in the 21st era is the new threat of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis (De Cock
et al. 2013). They are only a few of the most infectious diseases that are continuing to plague the
humanity. The AIDS related deaths in the world have risen to its peak ever since the end of the cold
war. The international response to the HIV has prevented near about 32 million of new HIV infections
as well as over 8 million deaths, resulting from the AIDs. There are some new threats like the avian
flu and the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) that have emerged in this new era. The

ISSUES OF SECURITY AND JUSTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
essential immunizations and vaccines are still underprovided in many of the developing countries and
therefore these communicable diseases are considered to be a global public health issue that has
captured the attention of global public and the global leaders. In addition to this, more than
31countries globally are functioning about 444 nuclear reactors for the generation of electricity and 60
new nuclear plants are still under construction. In the year 2014, there were 13 different countries,
dependent on the nuclear energy in order to supply one-quarter of the total electricity. In the 21st
century, the total volume of the world’s data is increasing proportionally. With the same, each and
every child in the current era has the right to education, health and protection, which was always
neglected and ignored in the earlier days. Today, every society in the world has an upright in
expanding and increasing the opportunities for children. However, still, there are certain parts in the
world, where billions of children are forbidden from the same and they are not given fair chances for
no genuine reason other than that of the country or gender or situations into which they are born.
Other than these, climate change is one of the key challenges of this era.
Studies have identified that the human activities over the past 100 years have activated a
historically unrivalled rise in the global surface temperatures and sea levels. This is a worrisome
acceleration for the nations especially over the past two decades. Its consequences are affecting
millions of people, specifically in the subtropical regions and poor countries through increase amount
of flooding, serious weather events etc. Right from shifting the weather patterns that has threaten the
production of food to rising of the sea level, that has increased the chance of catastrophic flooding
and has impacted the climate change are both international in terms of scope as well as
unprecedented in terms of scale (Wheeler and Von Braun 2013). The other major change includes the
decolonization. It has revealed and dismantled the colonist power in every form. The wave of
decolonization has changed the planet. It has resulted in the independence and joining to the UN of
many countries all over the world, that is really a great achievement. Today, the human rights is
considered as one of the major crosscutting themes in the areas of security, peace, humanitarian,
development, social and economic affairs. This has resulted in the involvement of specialized
agencies for the protection of the human rights. Some of the examples include the labor rights, which

ISSUES OF SECURITY AND JUSTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
is protected by International Labor Organization; Right to food, which is advocated by United Nation
Food and Agriculture Organization; Gender equality, which is circulated by the UN Women and the
Right to indigenous people, children and the disabled persons. Along with that, there is a high rise in
the world population. It is increasingly expanding ever since the founding of the UN. In the 1950, the
global population was estimated to be around 2.6 billion, which is now expanded to about 7 billion. In
addition to this, the International Migration is also one of the key issues of security and justice in
today’s advanced world (Castles, De Haas and Miller 2013). The world is now witnessing highest
level of refugees or displacement on the record. The rapidly increasing flow of migrants across the
national borders is a contributor as well as a consequence of a comparatively more interconnected
world. Near about 180 million of people around the world already stay outside their respective
countries of birth (Truong, Gasper and Handmaker 2014). About 59.5 million people worldwide are
been forced to leave their home and settle to some other places and among them the estimation of
total number of refugees is nearly 19 million and half of them are below the age of 18.
There is also a threat of food security in the modern days (Lal 2013). In this world of rapidly
growing prosperity, about 790 million people still do not get access to adequate food and water. Thus,
elimination of hunger is one of the key challenges that the humanity is facing in the 21st century.
However, there is no sign of problems related to the availability of food at the global level. On the
other hand, the global production of food is keeping a pace with the recent decades’ growing world
population. The availability of fresh water is also very low. There are huge scarcity of fresh water in
today’s world of well-developed industries and technology. The world population has tripled since the
past centuries and this has increased the use of water for consumption, agriculture, and the other
activities hand in hand. Fresh water is very vital for the human health. However, there is enough fresh
water for the sustainability of human on earth but still, the poor infrastructure and bad economics has
led to inadequate water supply. Millions people, especially the children are dying from various
diseases that are associated with the consumption of unhygienic water or due to lack of adequate
intake of water.

ISSUES OF SECURITY AND JUSTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Malnutrition has remained the world’s most serious health problem since decades. It is now
the single most contributor of children mortality around the nations (Black et al. 2013). Near about
one-third of the total children present in the developing nations are either stunted or underweight, and
more than 30% of the total world population suffers from the deficiency of micronutrient. Another
major issue of security in modern days is of conflict and development. Around 1.1 billion people
today are affected either by violent conflicts or by the high danger of being affected by near future.
Most of the violent conflicts of today are civil or intrastate, rather than interstate or between various
nations. The pervasiveness of each kind of conflict is lessening. Majorities of the global conflicts now
take place in the poor countries, especially in Africa. The civil conflicts commonly occur in large
territories that are lying outside the power of recognized government that may then become focus of
disease and crimes.
With the same, it should be also stated that the very concept of state power is altering in this
era. The international security is provided by not only the military forces but also by the help of
economic, financial as well as informational resources that affects the opponents and allies that comes
to the forepart. Corruption has also created a distortion and inefficiencies in the public
administration. It in turn has increased the inequality (Baars et al. 2016). It is unfairly benefiting the
rich people with power and is harming the poorer. The rich people are becoming richer and the poor
people are becoming poorer in this era. The victims of corruption are usually the developing
countries, whose precious investment and foreign aid are piped off from desperately needed
development projects and into the pockets of corrupt government officials, their cronies, or the
corrupt brokers or the intermediaries.
Hence, from the above analysis it is seen that the new issues and challenges of global security
and justice that are posed in this 21st century involves terrorism, separatism, different form of
extremism, corruption, regional conflicts, rise in rate of crimes, ecological catastrophes and the
nuclear weapons of multitude destruction and many more. Furthermore, it has been analyzed that
globalization has a major influence on the global security and that the UN is playing a major role in
upgrading the condition of the nations in every possible terms.

ISSUES OF SECURITY AND JUSTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
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ISSUES OF SECURITY AND JUSTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY