Introduction: Human Security and the Emergence of Body Counts

Abstract

How do we understand human security and casualty recording in the 21-century, our fundamental human rights and the importance of recording their violation? Human security and human rights are mutually reinforcing, as they identify the rights that need to be protected and recognise the ethical and political importance of securing the holders of those rights. Protecting human rights and upholding humanitarian law are essential to human security, which makes imperative the need to highlight the insecurity caused by armed conflict through assessing the impact on civilian life. Casualty recording bodies like Iraq Body Count have emerged, in order to record the toll the War on Terror took on those the Geneva Conventions called protected persons. The recognition of the importance of the right to life, security and liberty has placed great demands on governments and organisations to closely monitor and record human deaths from armed violence, and, by documenting those deaths in as much detail as possible, to give a human face to victims of war.