Human Security Report 2005
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The ''Human Security Report 2005'' is a report outlining declining world trends of global
violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or Power (social and p ...
from the early 1990s to 2003. The study reported major worldwide declines in the number of
armed conflicts War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...
,
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
s, military coups, and international crises, as well as in the number of battle-related deaths per armed conflict. Three years in the making and launched in 2005, the report was produced at the Human Security Centre at the
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
's Liu Institute for Global Issues by the
Human Security Report Project The Human Security Report Project (HSRP) is a peace and conflict studies research group. The Project is presently based at Simon Fraser University's School for International Studies at Harbour Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, having fo ...
(HSRP), which moved in May 2007 to join
Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...
's School for International Studies. The ''Human Security Report'' covers similar ground to the long-runnin
Peace and Conflict
series. According to the 2005 ''Report'', the world saw a shift in global security after the end of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, with a 40% decrease in the number of armed conflicts being waged around the world since the early 1990s, and an 80% decrease of genocides between 1998 and 2001. Some critics have questioned the relevance of this data, noting that conflict and violence are still significant obstacles for
human development Human development may refer to: * Development of the human body * Developmental psychology * Human development (economics) * Human Development Index, an index used to rank countries by level of human development * Human evolution, the prehistoric ...
, worldwide security, and sustainable
peace Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
. For example, a recent ''
Human Development Report The Human Development Report (HDR) is an annual Human Development Index report published by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The first HDR was launched in 1990 by the Pakistani economist ...
'' from the
United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
agrees that the number of conflicts has declined in the last decade, but claims that the wars of the past 15 years have exterminated a larger number of human lives. The ''Human Security Report'' argues that there is no evidence to support such a contention. The ''Report'' claims that the average number of battle-related deaths per conflict has declined from some 38,000 in 1950 to less than 500 in 2007. Individual fatality tolls may well be inaccurate; the trends, however, are indisputable. There are no accurate data on the (much larger) number of people who die from war-exacerbated
disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
and
malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues a ...
, but the ''Report'' argues that there are good reasons for believing that these have declined as well. Some critics have argued that there was too much focus on battle-related "direct" deaths in the ''Report''. However, an entire section discusses the large number of "indirect" deaths caused by war-exacerbated malnutrition and disease. In some cases, the ''Report'' says, the ratio of indirect to direct deaths is higher than 10:1. The ''Report'' argues that conflict-driven disease and malnutrition are greater threats to
human security Human security is a paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities whose proponents challenges the traditional notion of national security through military security by arguing that the proper referent for security should be at the human rather t ...
than bombs and bullets. But it also argues that indirect deaths have declined over the past 15 years, along with battle-related deaths. Indirect deaths–the hidden cost of war–is one of the two main themes of the later ''Human Security Report 2009/2010''. Indirect deaths are driven by the intensity and scope of
political violence Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals. It can include violence which is used by a state against other states (war), violence which is used by a state against civilians and non-state actors (forced ...
. The 2009/2010 ''Report'' argues that, since
humanitarian Humanitarianism is an active belief in the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotional ...
assistance has increased on a per capita basis and since recent peacetime health interventions–primarily
immunization Immunization, or immunisation, is the process by which an individual's immune system becomes fortified against an infectious agent (known as the immunogen). When this system is exposed to molecules that are foreign to the body, called ''non-sel ...
–reduce death tolls in wartime, it is highly likely that indirect deaths from war-exacerbated disease and malnutrition have declined to a greater degree than have "direct" deaths from violent injuries. Since the 2005 ''Report'' appeared, the data on armed conflict trends, which comes from the
Uppsala Conflict Data Program The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) is a data collection program on organized violence, based at Uppsala University in Sweden. The UCDP is a leading provider of data on organized violence and armed conflict, and it is the oldest ongoing data ...
, indicates that there has been a 25% increase in the overall number of conflicts in which a
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
is one of the warring parties, but that the number of high-intensity conflicts (those generating 1,000 or more battle deaths in a year) have continued to decline and are now some 68% lower than at the end of the Cold War.


External links


Press Release
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