Significant Numbers: Civilian Casualties and Strategic Peacebuilding

Abstract

The two purposes of this chapter are to trace the evolution of legal and political concern for the fate of civilians in wartime and to link civilian casualty recording and estimation to strategic peacebuilding. It traces the historical development of norms and rules of war as they relate to civilians, beginning with states’ original interest in helping combatants and ending with the current idea that protecting civilians from violence is a universal responsibility. This normative shift has had the effect of increasing the influence of civilian casualty numbers on policy choices, making it all the more important to get the numbers right. The chapter then identifies strategic peacebuilding as an ambitious attempt to establish both lasting peace and a degree of justice, in part by placing civilian casualties at the center of retributive justice proceedings, such as criminal tribunals, and restorative justice processes, such as truth and reconciliation commissions. In these highly politicized environments, the process of revealing information about civilian losses can be as important as its outcome.This is the second chapter of an edited volume on methodologies for recording and estimating civilian casualties in zones of conflict. The goal of this volume is to encourage policymakers, military officials, journalists, human rights activists, courts, and other interested people to be more informed and skeptical “consumers” of casualty counts. To this end, contributing authors highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the most commonly used casualty recording and estimation techniques.