Casualty recording explained

Casualty recording is the systematic and continuous process of documenting individual direct deaths from armed conflict or widespread violence. It aims to create a comprehensive account of all deaths within a determined scope, usually bound by time and location.

Parameters

At minimum, casualty recording typically involves documenting the date and location of a violent incident; the number of people killed; the means of violence or category of weapon used; and the party responsible.[1] [2] [3] Casualty recording differs from casualty tracking by military actors to track the effects of their operations on the civilian population for the purpose of improving their procedures and reducing civilian casualties.[4]

A defining feature of casualty recording is that it is victim-centric and seeks to establish the identity of every fatality including name, age, sex, and other relevant demographic details. Where relevant to the conflict context, this may also include ethnicity and religious or political affiliation. However, depending on the aims and resources of the organisation conducting the recording, a particular initiative may record only a specific subset of deaths. Subsets may include, for example, deaths caused by a specific belligerent or weapons type, or deaths of a particular segment of the population, such as children.

Casualty recording focuses on documenting direct deaths from armed violence. It does not normally include deaths caused by the indirect or reverberating effects of conflict.[5] Some casualty recording initiatives document injuries as well as deaths. Casualty records may overlap with, or operate in conjunction with, records of persons who have gone missing during a conflict or period of violence.[6]

Aims and uses

Practitioners have different aims and motivations for conducting casualty recording. Typically these are grounded in considerations relating to international humanitarian law or human rights law.[7] [8] Casualty records have also been used to support some humanitarian disarmament initiatives.[9]

The purported aims of casualty records include:

History

The twenty-first century practice of monitoring and publishing detailed online information on the human casualties of armed conflicts is sometimes associated with the Iraq Body Count project that started monitoring Iraqi deaths in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Iraq Body Count estimates, the 2004 and 2006 Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties and the ORB survey of Iraq War casualties led to several years of academic debate over the accuracy of the various surveys of the total casualties of the Iraq War.

Methodology and standards

Approaches to casualty recording vary depending on the context, purpose and resources of the organisation responsible. In 2016, Standards for Casualty Recording were published by the UK-based NGO Every Casualty Counts, in an effort to harmonise approaches across the field and promote best practice.[19] [20]

The data gathered by a casualty recording project will generally be stored in an electronic or paper-based database, but there is no standard format for sharing or publishing the final results. Some casualty recorders, such as Iraq Body Count project and Yemen Data Project, make their records publicly available online and searchable. Casualty recorders have also published books of their records, such as the Kosovo Memory Book and Lost Lives (relating to deaths from the conflict in Northern Ireland).[21] [22] Lost Lives was subsequently reproduced as a documentary film in 2019. Casualty data may also be used to produce digital or physical memorials of those who died, as in the case of Remembering The Ones We Lost, which memorialises individuals who were killed or went missing during the conflict in South Sudan.

Practitioners

Casualty recording is frequently conducted by civil society organisations in the absence of official recording processes led by state entities.[23] In some armed conflict situations, public services normally involved in recording deaths (including hospitals and other health services, as well as coroners and police forces) are no longer functioning effectively. There may also be political reasons why state authorities do not publish or share information on conflict related deaths. Some internationally mandated entities, including UN peacekeeping missions or commissions of inquiry, conduct casualty recording as part of their broader work.

Examples of organisations which conduct, or have conducted, casualty recording include:

Non-conflict casualty recording

Although casualty recording typically relates to deaths resulting from armed conflict, specialised casualty recording projects not directly related to armed violence also exist. These include projects focused on recording deaths from gender based violence and deaths or disappearances of migrants, homeless people and other vulnerable groups. Examples of such initiatives include:

See also

Notes and References

  1. Book: Standards for Casualty Recording . Every Casualty Worldwide . 2016.
  2. Web site: Taylor . Rachel . Standards for Casualty Recording: Summaries . Every Casualty Counts . 16 November 2023 . 6 May 2021.
  3. Web site: Good Practice in Conflict Casualty Recording . css.ethz.ch . en . 2023-11-16 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191030230332/https://css.ethz.ch/en/services/digital-library/publications/publication.html/154496 . 2019-10-30 . live.
  4. Web site: Backgrounder: Tracking Civilian Harm . Center for Civilians in Conflict . en-US. 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191030223302/https://civiliansinconflict.org/publications/policy/backgrounder-tracking-civilian-harm/. 2019-10-30. live.
  5. Web site:

    everycasualty

    . www.everycasualty.org. 15 October 2019 . 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191029171627/http://www.everycasualty.org/newsandviews/background-paper-current. 2019-10-29. live.
  6. Web site: Clarifying the fate of missing persons. 2016-09-15. Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog. en-US. 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191030223311/https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2016/09/15/clarifying-fate-missing-persons/. 2019-10-30. live.
  7. Web site: Casualty recording in and for the modern age: Why standards matter. Russell. Simon. 2016-11-08. Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog. en-US. 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191029171609/https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2016/11/08/casualty-recording-standards/. 2019-10-29. live.
  8. Jewell. Nicholas P.. Spagat. Michael. Jewell. Britta L.. 2018. Accounting for Civilian Casualties: From the Past to the Future. Social Science History. en. 42. 3. 379–410. 10.1017/ssh.2018.9. 0145-5532. free.
  9. Hicks. Madelyn Hsiao-Rei. Dardagan. Hamit. Serdán. Gabriela Guerrero. Bagnall. Peter M.. Sloboda. John A.. Spagat. Michael. 2009-04-16. The Weapons That Kill Civilians — Deaths of Children and Noncombatants in Iraq, 2003–2008. New England Journal of Medicine. 360. 16. 1585–1588. 10.1056/NEJMp0807240. 0028-4793. 19369663. free.
  10. Web site:

    everycasualty

    . www.everycasualty.org. 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191030223301/https://www.everycasualty.org/newsandviews/syria-war-crimes. 2019-10-30. live.
  11. Dardagan. Hamit. Sloboda. John. Iron. Richard. Summer 2010. In Everyone's Interest: Recording All The Dead, Not Just Our Own. British Army Journal. 149. 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191030223300/https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/3E797C317999FE0AC12577D10056AA0F-ORG-In-everyones-interest-aug2010.pdf. 2019-10-30. live.
  12. Web site: UN Protection of Civilians :: everycasualty. www.everycasualty.org. 12 July 2012 . 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191030223302/https://www.everycasualty.org/newsandviews/Protection_of_Civilians. 2019-10-30. live.
  13. Web site: V. Casualty recording in armed conflict: methods and normative issues : SIPRI Yearbook 2016. www.sipriyearbook.org. 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191030230328/https://www.sipriyearbook.org/view/9780198787280/sipri-9780198787280-chapter-006-div1-049.xml. 2019-10-30. live.
  14. Web site: Which Deaths Matter?. Urist. Jacoba. 2014-09-29. The Atlantic. en-US. 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191030230330/https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/which-deaths-matter-media-statistics/380898/. 2019-10-30. live.
  15. Guha-Sapir. Debarati. Schlüter. Benjamin. Rodriguez-Llanes. Jose Manuel. Lillywhite. Louis. Hicks. Madelyn Hsiao-Rei. 2018-01-01. Patterns of civilian and child deaths due to war-related violence in Syria: a comparative analysis from the Violation Documentation Center dataset, 2011–16. The Lancet Global Health. en. 6. 1. e103–e110. 10.1016/S2214-109X(17)30469-2. 2214-109X. 29226821. free.
  16. Web site: Counting the Cost: Casualty recording practices and realities. 2014-04-16. AOAV. en-US. 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191030223301/https://aoav.org.uk/2014/counting-the-cost/. 2019-10-30. live.
  17. Web site: Article 36 Casualty Recording UNGA. October 2013. article36.org. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20170106234814/http://www.article36.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/A36_CasualtyRecording_UNGA.pdf. 6 January 2017. 30 October 2019.
  18. Web site: Article36 Article 36 is a specialist non-profit organisation, focused on reducing harm from weapons. : Casualty recording, critical argument and campaigning against weapons. www.article36.org. 2019-11-06. https://web.archive.org/web/20191106135607/http://www.article36.org/processes-and-policy/casualty-recording/casualty-recording-critical-argument-and-campaigning-against-weapons/. 2019-11-06. live.
  19. Web site: 2016-10-21. International launch of Standards for Casualty Recording: Putting principles into practice. 2022-01-03. International Committee of the Red Cross. en.
  20. Web site: 2016. STANDARDS FOR CASUALTY RECORDING. live. 3 January 2022. Every Casualty Worldwide. https://web.archive.org/web/20220103123653/https://everycasualty.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/StandardsforCasualtyRecording-Version1.0.12020-en.pdf . 2022-01-03 .
  21. Web site: 2015-02-04. Experts Greet HLC's 'Kosovo Memory Book'. 2022-01-03. Balkan Insight. en-US.
  22. News: Lost Lives book a decade-long labour of love for five authors. en-GB. belfasttelegraph. 2022-01-03. 0307-1235.
  23. Web site: Study into good practice :: Every Casualty. www.everycasualty.org. 2019-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20191029171639/https://www.everycasualty.org/practice/methods-research. 2019-10-29. live.
  24. Web site: Casualties Reports Monitor. 2022-01-03. www.the-monitor.org.
  25. Web site: BBC News Northern Ireland Turning the pages on lost lives. 2022-01-03. news.bbc.co.uk.
  26. Web site: Dying Homeless: Counting the deaths of homeless people across the UK. 2022-01-03. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (en-GB). en.

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