Human Security Report 2009

In January 2010, the Human Security Report Project (HSRP) released the "Shrinking Costs of War", Part II of the forthcoming Human Security Report 2009.

Challenging commonsense assumptions, the study reveals that nationwide death rates actually fall during the course of most of today’s armed conflicts.

The study argues that wartime mortality, from disease and malnutrition, as well as war-inflicted injuries, has been driven downwards by significant changes in the nature of warfare—evident in the 70 percent decline in the number of high-intensity conflicts since the end of the Cold War, and more than 30 years of highly effective health interventions in poor countries in peacetime—which have cut death tolls from disease during wartime.

The "Shrinking Costs of War" also provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the claim that 5.4 million people have died because of the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It demonstrates that the true death toll is far smaller.