While securitization studies have paid considerable attention to the moral value of desecuritization, they have paid almost no attention to the morality of securitization. In this article, I attempt to rectify that situation by proposing a revision of securitization theory that specifies three criteria that – if fulfilled at the same time – would render a securitization morally right. The criteria are: (1) that there is an objective existential threat; (2) that the referent object of security is morally legitimate; and (3) that the security response is appropriate to the threat in question. Although what is suggested here is considerably removed from the Copenhagen School’s original securitization theory, it is akin to that framework insofar as it retains the functional distinction between the security analyst and the securitizing actor. Indeed, the development of criteria that determine the moral rightness of securitization is analogous to the Copenhagen School’s devising criteria that determine both the existence and the success of securitization.

This article constitutes an attempted bridge-building between the so-called ‘Copenhagen School’ and the so-called ‘Welsh School’ of security studies. The thesis of communality rests upon an evaluative bifurcation of the concept of securitisation into positive and negative securitisation. In tandem with this lies a bifurcation of the concept of desecuritisation into positive and negative desecuritisation. The two positive concepts are believed to be of equal value, with both trumping over the two negative concepts.This evaluative strategy of securitisation/desecuritisation, it is hoped will combine the optimistic perception of security by ‘Welsh School’ critical security theorists, with the more pessimistic perception of security associated with the Copenhagen School – particularly with that of Ole Wæver, the originator of securitisation theory. Such a strategy is seen as advantageous for three reasons. First, it is believed that the more unified these critical theories are, the stronger a challenge they can offer to the mainstream of security studies; second, the more united the academy the more adoptable are its theories for policymakers (EU or otherwise) and third the strategy proposed here paves the way for a more evaluative engagement with security on the part of the analyst, allowing for normative – but denying infinite – conceptualisations of security.In order to show that there are differences between the utility of securitisation and desecuritisation, this article demonstrates the distinctions by way of illustrative examples, all of which are taken from the environmental security sector. By means of this practical application, the article will show that neither securitisation nor desecuritisation are, in and of themselves positive or negative. It is rather the case that the outcome of a securitisation/desecuritisation is always issue dependent – something reflected here in the suggested two-tier structure of securitisation.

This paper is concerned with two interrelated problems in the Copenhagen School's (CS) securitization theory. The first is the challenge non-exceptional security polices pose to the theory, which starts from the assumption that securitization is 'successful' only when extraordinary emergency measures are adopted. The second arises not from what factors define securitization's 'success', but rather from who does so. Securitization theory suffers from a constructivist deficit because the criterion for the 'success' of securitization is set by scholars, when a more 'radically constructivist [theory] regarding security' (Buzan et al., 1998: 204) would require practitioners to be in charge of defining the 'success' of securitization. The paper offers a solution to both of these problems by suggesting that securitization is 'successful' only when (1) the identification of a threat that justifies a response (securitizing move) is followed by (2) a change of behaviour (action) by a relevant agent (that is, the securitizing actor or someone instructed by the same), and also (3) the action taken is justified by the securitizing actor with reference to the threat he/she identified and declared in the securitizing move. It goes on to reject the ideas of a sanctioning audience and of the insistence on existential threats as also set by the CS.

Institute for Environmental Security. The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, as well as Jonathan Floyd for numerous useful conversations about this article. Environmental security emerged as both a concept and a set of policies as a consequence of the end of the Cold War. As a corollary of this, new debates were simultaneously opened up regarding the nature of the threat, the appropriate referent object of security and also the meaning of security itself. There was, at the same time and for the same reason, a need for a new set of "discourses of danger" on the part of the United States security establishment. Environmental security quickly became one of the more prominent issues in this new era of security studies. Although currently sidelined by "the war on terror", the possible linkage between global warming and security gives renewed fervour to the environmental security debate. The present article both revisits this debate and considers its significance for securitising the climate; that is, making climate change a security issue. Early advocates 1 Walter B. Gallie cited in Buzan, People, States and Fear, 7. 2 Waever, "Peace and Security".

In recent years climate change has become integrated into pre-existing, but fragmented structures of global security governance. In this article I argue that while institutional fragmentation of global climate security governance is not automatically problematic the phenomenon of ideational fragmentation that often goes with it is highly disadvantageous to achieving climate security for people. This is because the preferences of a diverse group of security organisations/actors (in this article the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union and the United States/Pentagon) are often vastly removed from the global agenda set by the United Nations and their expressed preference for understanding climate security in terms of human security. I suggest that the first step towards overcoming ideational fragmentation would have to be the advancement of a universal definition of climate security by an authoritative source, however, given that security is for many actors a matter of perception the chances of overcoming ideational fragmentation are slim.