It may not seem like it, but the world is becoming a safer place.
That’s the finding in a new report by the Human Security Report Project (HSRP) at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia on Canada’s west coast.
Andrew Mack is director of the HSRP and I reached in New York where he has presented his report to the United Nations.
ListenIt’s called the “Human Security Report 2013: The Decline in Global Violence: Evidence, Explanation, and Contestation,
It says there has been a noticeable decline in both frequency and deadliness of major armed conflict since the Second World War.
In the 1950’s and 60’s there was an average of 6 international wars per decade, whereas since the 2000s that has declined to less than one.
Although during that same time period the total number of armed conflicts has increased threefold, most of those conflicts were low intensity civil wars.
HSRP director Andrew Mack says, “This matters because international wars kill far more people on average than do the far more numerous civil wars,”
In addition, the deadliest conflicts, those that kill at least 1000 people per year, have declined by more than half.
The report also notes that gang and organized crime conflicts, often drug related, are causing more deaths than some wars. This is especially in Mexico and Central America, Here too however killings have been declining lately.
It cites a work by American Stephen Pinker whose book- The Better Angels of Our Nature- proposes that human violence- with lapses- has been on a general downward trend for thousands of years. It notes there has been less warfare, fewer murders, a dramatic reduction in torture and general inhumane practices, and a virtual eradication of slavery over that time.
HSRP Director Mack says, that the well-documented horrors of the Second World War have changed attitudes towards war, around the world.
He notes there are more democracies now and that democracies seldom engage in war with other democracies. Mack also points to the fact that there are many organizations and agencies now that work to reduce or end internal conflicts as wel.
He notes that while media attention on violence increases the public’s perception that violence is getting worse, the statistical data does not back that up.
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