Ebola, Disease-Control, and the Security Council

From Securitization to Securing Circulation

Datos Bibliográficos

ID13020142
AutoresChristian Enemark (0000-0002-1833-0927, University of Southampton, autor de correspondencia)
Año2016
Volumen2
Número2
Páginas137-149
Fecha de publicación2016-12-22
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Global Security Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2057-3189 • E-ISSN: 2057-3189
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/jogss/ogw030
OpenAlexW2567601632
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas26
Referencias citadas23

In 2014, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) described the Ebola outbreak then ongoing in West Africa as “a threat to international peace and security.” Resolution 2177 was the first time a disease outbreak of natural origin had been described using language ordinarily applied to political violence. This article assesses the significance of Resolution 2177 as an instrument of health governance, with particular regard to the Council’s primary aim: to bring about the lifting of state-imposed bans on travel to and from West Africa. The UNSC’s response might at first appear to have been an international-level attempt to remove Ebola from the realm of security policy for the sake of public health. However, the use of threat language in Resolution 2177, alongside the rapid mobilization of disease-control resources by some governments represented on the Council, suggests that some kind of security logic was driving the international response to Ebola. I posit that it was not the logic of securitization, based upon the use of borders as barriers to contagion, that drove UN policy. Rather, the UNSC appears to have acted according to the security logic of governmentality, whereby the health of populations (within and beyond West Africa) would be secured by facilitating cross-border circulation of medical professionals. The Council’s contribution to health governance was to support a shift in security logic: from securitization to securing circulation

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