ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Latin American Council for Peace Research (CLAIP), the leading peace studies organization in Latin America. 1 It offers an introduction, a section on peace studies in Latin America, and a reflection on the evolution of the concept of security, expanding from narrow military definitions in the region. It analyses also the new threats, challenges and vulnerability linked to the globalization process, cultural homogenization and climate change. In a special part, the chapter deepens the traditional concept of security, including human and environmental security and widening into my own concept of HUGE: Human, Gender and Environmental Security. This concept responds to current trends of violence in which vulnerable persons are targeted, and where their human suffering is frequently linked to structural injustices in the free market system, environmental destruction and violent conflict for control over natural resources
