Assessing the incidence, severity and consequences of political violence

The absence of reliable statistics on armed conflict, genocide or human rights abuses has made it hard to track trends in human security issues. However, the first comprehensive annual survey of human security has shown that all forms of political violence, except international terrorism, are declining.

The Human Security Report 2005, which was produced by the Human Security Centre at the University of British Columbia, Canada shows that since the end of the Cold War genocides and violent conflicts have declined. Wars are not only less frequent, but are also far less deadly. It challenges a number of widely-held myths: that terrorism represents the gravest threat to international security; that 90 percent of those killed in today’s wars are civilians and that women are disproportionately affected by conflict.

Despite the much-published failures, the efforts of the United Nations (UN) have been central to the reduction in war numbers around the world. Since the end of the Cold War the world body has spearheaded an upsurge in conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peace building activities.

Between 1990 and 2002 there was a six-fold increase in UN preventive diplomacy missions, a four-fold increase in UN peacemaking missions, a four-fold increase in operations aimed at stopping conflicts reigniting and a 60 percent increase in the number of UN peace operations. The number of states subject to UN sanctions – which can help pressure warring parties into negotiations – rose 11 times.

The international media has largely ignored the fact that around 100 conflicts have ended since 1988. The number of disputes ended by negotiated settlements has increased significantly. Half of all the peace agreements between 1946 and 2003 have been signed since the end of the Cold War.

Evidence shows that:

• Since 1992 the number of conflicts leading to over 1,000 battle-deaths has dropped by 80 percent.
• Wars between countries are rare – now less than five percent of all armed conflicts.
• While there were 25 coups or attempted coups in 1963, in 2004 there were only ten and all of them failed.
• The average number of people reported killed per conflict per year in 1950 was 38,000 but in 2002 was 600.
• Since the late 1970s the number of states governed by authoritarian regimes has dropped from 90 to 30.

However, there is no room for complacency. That the world is getting more peaceful is no consolation to people suffering in Darfur, Iraq, Colombia, Congo or Nepal. The international community needs to remember that:

• There are still some 60 armed conflicts raging around the globe.
• The biggest death tolls do not come from fighting but from war-exacerbated disease and malnutrition: while these ‘indirect’ deaths are thought to account for as much as 90 percent of the total war-related death toll, monitoring mechanisms remain poor.
• The annual death toll from international terrorism is a tiny fraction of the annual war death toll.

The report finally stresses that urgent reforms are required if the UN is to truly fulfil its mandate to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’.

Source(s):
Human Security Report 2005, Oxford University Press, November 2005 Full document.

Funded by: Governments of Canada, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK

id21 Research Highlight: 20 July 2006

Further Information:
Andrew Mack
Human Security Centre
Liu Institute for Global Issues
University of British Columbia
6476 NW Marine Drive
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
Canada

Tel: + 1 604 822 1877
Fax: + 1 604 822 6966
Contact the contributor: andrewmack@telus.net; hs.centre@ubc.ca;

The Human Security Centre, Canada

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