Thursday, June 04, 2009

Where Is Switzerland on this List?

Impact Lab
The top ten most peaceful nations:
  • 1 New Zealand,
  • 2 Denmark,
  • 3 Norway,
  • 4 Iceland,
  • 5 Austria,
  • 6 Sweden,
  • 7 Japan,
  • 8 Canada,
  • 9= Finland,
  • 10= Slovenia.
The Global Peace Index, a report prepared for the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranks 144 countries in a league table of peacefulness.

The index defines peace as “the absence of violence”.

Twenty-three criteria on which the league table is compiled include political stability, risk of terrorism, murder rate, likelihood of violent demonstrations, respect for human rights, internal conflicts, arms imports and involvement in foreign wars. _ImpactLab
The ten least peaceful countries:
  • 1 Iraq,
  • 2 Afghanistan,
  • 3 Somalia,
  • 4 Israel,
  • 5 Sudan,
  • 6 Democratic Republic of the Congo,
  • 7 Chad,
  • 8 Pakistan,
  • 9 Russia,
  • 10 Zimbabwe
Like any such list, it was compiled more for political reasons than to be informative. You have to take it with a tonne of salt. But there is plenty to think about. These are calculations generally done by the subconscious mind, on local, regional, and global levels. Every time we consider a travel route or a vacation plan.

People do not emigrate from Switzerland or the Cayman Islands to Egypt or Gaza.

2 comments:

neil craig said...

Slovenia, having started the ugoslav wars & having a large number of inhabitants whom it denies citizenship to on ethnic grounds is a strange choice for peaceful & Israel as a less peaceful place to live than Sudan will come as a relief to the people of Darfur. I would have thought Singapore should be up there but they do have an effective way of dealing with Straits pirates which may have knocked them down.

al fin said...

Right.

The ranking criteria are more important than the rank itself.