Global peace index

Main Topic: Coordinator Comments

A number of starts have been made in recent years to rank the nation-states on a "peace index" or "culture of peace index". The most recent, available on the Internet is the Global Peace Index.

A similar index, using the eight programme areas of the culture of peace, had been described earlier by the academic researcher Joseph DeRivera in an article in the Journal of Peace Research.

It always turns out the the rich countries of the North (or South in the case of Australia and New Zealand) are high on these indexes and the poor countries of the South are low.

But, as diplomats from the South have said, one should not look to us for the causes of the culture of war. Ask three questions: From where do the weapons come? From where do the violent television programs come? And where are the terms of trade decided that impoverish the people of the South which leads to violence.