The Politics of Global Legalism and Human Security
Antonio Franceschet

Abstract
This article argues that human security discourses and initiatives are made intelligible
by the politics of applying legalism to global politics. Human security projects like the
International Criminal Court, the Ottawa Treaty on landmines, and coercive interventions
like Kosovo are shaped, mobilised, but also limited and constrained by the wider
problematic of the legal constitution of global politics. Although human security has
been the justification for efforts to liberalise and humanise politics through law, it
has also been associated with exceptionalistic and non-universal legal relationships
that reinforce the interests of the most dominant actors in global politics. As a result,
human security runs the danger of becoming an instrument of hegemony. Nonetheless,
the article also argues that there are always progressive political openings in
the politics of a global rule of law that can facilitate a wider conception of human
security than has been pursued since the mid-1990s.