Building a Human Security-based Framework

for the Protection of Migrants in Northeast Asia

Stephen Robert Nagy

This paper argues that human security (HS) is a suitable framework for the protection of migrants in Northeast Asia. Drawing on policy papers and interviews with Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and scholars in Japan, this paper contends that the Japanese focus on “freedom from want” vis-à-vis HS resonates with the views on HS of neighbours in the region, as it focuses on the collective rather than the individual, is non-interventionist, apolitical and non-ideo-logical. By focusing on existing capabilities in the region, this paper advocates that, through harmonization of migrantpolicies bilaterally or multilaterally, employing mutually agreed upon, pre-existing understandings of labour rights, and finding a role for local governments and NGOs, human security-based migrant policies can help protect migrants in the region.