Definitions:
This indicator is defined as the total count of conflict-related deaths divided by the total population, expressed per 100,000 population.
‘Conflict’ is defined as ‘armed conflict’ in reference to a terminology enshrined in International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and applied to situations based on the assessment of the United Nations (UN) and other internationally mandated entities. ‘Conflict-related deaths’ refers to direct and indirect deaths associated to armed conflict. ‘Population’ refers to total resident population in a given situation of armed conflict included in the indicator, in a given year. Population data are derived from annual estimates produced by the UN Population Division.
Concepts:
‘Conflict’
According to IHL, the branch of international law, which specifically focuses on armed conflicts, two types of armed conflicts exist: international armed conflicts (IAC) and non-international armed conflicts (NIAC).
IAC exist whenever there is resort to armed force between two or more States. An IAC does not exist in cases in which use of force is the result of an error (e.g. involuntary incursion into foreign territory, wrongly identifying the target); and when the territorial State has given its consent to an intervention.
NIAC are protracted armed confrontations occurring between governmental armed forces and the forces of one or more armed groups, or between such groups arising on the territory of a State. The armed confrontation must reach a “minimum level of intensity” and the parties involved in the conflict must show a “minimum of organisation”.
‘Conflict-related deaths’
Direct deaths are deaths where there are reasonable grounds to believe that they resulted directly from war operations and that the acts, decisions and/or purposes that caused these deaths were in furtherance of or under the guise of armed conflict.
These deaths may have been caused by (i) the use of weapons or (ii) other means and methods. Deaths caused by the use of weapons, include but are not limited to those inflicted by firearms, missiles, mines, and bladed weapons. It may also include deaths resulting from aerial attacks and bombardments (e.g. of military bases, cities and villages), crossfire, explosive remnants of war, targeted killings or assassinations, force protection incidents. Deaths caused by other means and methods may include deaths from torture or sexual and gender-based violence, intentional killing using starvation, depriving prisoners of access to health care or denying access to essential goods and services (e.g. an ambulance stopped at a check point).
Indirect deaths are deaths resulting from a loss of access to essential goods and services (e.g. economic slowdown, shortages of medicines or reduced farming capacity that result in lack of access to adequate food, water, sanitation, health care and safe conditions of work) that are caused or aggravated by the situation of armed conflict.
By definition, these deaths should be separated from other violent deaths which are, in principle, not connected to the situation of armed conflict (e.g. intentional and non-intentional homicides, self-defence, self-inflicted), but are still relevant to the implementation and measurement of SDG target 16.1. The International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes (ICCS) provides definitional elements and classification of violent deaths both related and not related to armed conflict. The ICCS provides indications on how to distinguish between intentional homicides, killings directly related to war/armed conflict and killings that amount to war crimes.
‘Cause’ refers to the weapons, means and methods that caused the conflict-related deaths. The categories for the disaggregation of the ‘cause of death’ for direct deaths build on the WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), ICCS, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) overview of weapons regulated by IHL, UN practice and OHCHR casualty recording.
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