Armed violence and its impacts on the civilian population:

a necessary burden?

Abstract

The article addresses two types of contemporary violence: "armed conflicts" and "armed violence". In recent decades, ideas related to armed conflicts have been re-adapted as perceptions about the characteristics and nature of these conflicts have undergone substantial transformations. The collateral effects of such conflicts on people not directly involved is one of the factors that led to the institutionalization of International Humanitarian Law and the consolidation of the International Committee of the Red Cross. When one verifies that many of the causes and consequences of armed conflicts are also found in countries with armed violence - such as Brazil, South Africa and Jamaica - one realizes the possibility of drawing a parallel between both forms of contemporary violence. Moreover, the majority of firearm-related deaths do not occur in situations traditionally defined by armed conflicts: annual deaths related to armed conflicts amount to 30,000, according to estimates by Uppsala University, while violent deaths unrelated to armed conflicts would be between 200,000 and 270,000, according to the Small Arms Survey. Such figures challenge conventional categories of armed conflict and international humanitarian law, leading to the need to further analyze contemporary violence and promote the regulation of armed violence in order to control collateral effects and reduce the burden that is unnecessarily imposed on the civilian population.