that retains credibility for more than a few months.
WAR & PEACE
This is not a peaceful world, and yet it is more peaceful today than at
any time since before the First World War and, some argue, ever. Military
spending remains high, and armed conflict remains a major cause of death,
yet by comparison with earlier times, there are markedly fewer wars and they
are less lethal. There has been an avalanche of peace agreements in the two
decades since the end of the Cold War, and a major, sustained if quiet effort
not only to make peace, but then to lay the foundations for long-term peace
in conflict-affected countries.
It would be wrong to look at the issues of war and peace and declare job
done. In many countries, it is not so much a case of having achieved peace
as, rather, of bottling up conflict. Indeed, declaring job done prematurely is
a repeated failing of the Western governments who often offer themselves
as custodians of peace processes in war-torn countries. In many countries,
there are patterns of violent conflict that are from a different mould than
civil wars. They are generated by, and reinforce, a dangerous intersection
between crime and politics, and in several cases they revolve around the
trade in illegal narcotics or other illegal and massively profitable enterprises.
The main international institutions on which we rely for responding to armed
conflicts are strikingly ill-prepared for this kind of violent conflict. A high
United Nations representative can be sent to negotiate with even the most
despicable of dictators, but the same space and the same role does not exist
between a government and a drug lord.
There is, further, a risk that the number of civil wars could increase. The
environmental, demographic, and economic pressures are there. The United
Nations has become quite adept at generating norms that manage violent
conflict, but a new round of conflict pressures might encounter a deficient
response because the governments that have tended to fund peace efforts
include several that have been hard hit by economic crisis. With repetitive
demands for bailing out countries and banks, these governments may simply
conclude they have too many competing calls on economic resources for it to
be politically feasible to support long-term peacebuilding. If no new actors
appear to take their place, the peacebuilding enterprise could collapse.
Two decades of
growing peace
Number of wars
1990
2000
2010
50
37
30
11
These are all risks – the potential is there. Even so, if the United Nations as an
organization and those governments that have been particularly committed
to the work of ending armed conflicts can stay focused and keep their efforts
properly resourced, there is every reason to expect a reasonably successful
record of building peace to continue.
RIGHTS & RESPECT
This is the ninth edition of this atlas. The last one before this came out in
2008. At that time, 43 per cent of the world’s population lived in established
democracies. In this atlas, it is recorded that in 2012 48 per cent live in
established democracies.
For all its flaws, viewed from the perspective of ordinary citizens and their
shared interests, democracy is by far the best, most stable, and freest political
system. It is based on a bargain that concedes power to the state as long
as it is accountable to the people. It is a system in which the social and
economic elite has to accept constraints on its power. When it works properly,
it protects us from the negative consequences of our own short-sightedness
and tunnel vision. And it does so on the basis of our consent. It is the system
that has, on average, been associated with the most successful economies.
It is, however, like peace, a trend and benefit that needs safeguarding; it
cannot be taken for granted. Achieving democracy is perilous, and is closely
associated with violent conflict. And when it is well established and the
struggle to achieve it has been forgotten, it often seems barely to be taken
seriously by those who could most benefit from it. In countries that have
recently entered a democratic transition, there will always be false friends
of democracy, ready to try for power that way if that’s all that's possible,
but to grab and hold it against the democratic will if that becomes possible.
Similarly, in the established democracies there are always economic and social
elites who are content with democracy as long as they can rig its rules in their
favour, but are ready to cry foul if it ever threatens to rule against them.
These fake and shallow supporters of democracy reveal themselves by trying
to call the language of rights into service for one segment of society and not
for others, or by claiming exemptions from national and international legal
responsibilities whenever it suits them.
HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE
Without our good health, what can we do? Providing for our own and each
other’s health is fundamental to us, both as individuals and as social beings.
12
Living and dying
with HIV/AIDS
Adults and children
1990–2010
new HIV Infections
AIDS-related deaths
people
4m
3.5m
3m
2,5m
2m
1,5m
1m
0.5m
0
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010