WHY DENORMALISATION MATTERS
When explosive weapons are used in populated areas, around 9 out of 10 people killed or injured are civilians. This Issues section explains why that happens, why it is treated as “normal”, and how you can help change it.
For decades, the bombing and shelling of towns and cities has been treated as a grim normal feature of war, with devastation often dismissed as “collateral damage” even when civilians are clearly the main victims. Recent global monitoring of explosive violence shows record levels of civilian harm, with civilians again making up nearly nine in every ten people killed or injured and almost all of those harmed in populated areas. See, for example:
https://aoav.org.uk/2025/explosive-violence-monitor-2024/
By comparison, the Landmine Monitor and Cluster Munition Monitor report that thousands of people are killed or injured each year by landmines, explosive remnants of war, and cluster munitions, the vast majority of them civilians and many of them children. These findings helped drive the bans on anti‑personnel landmines and cluster munitions because of their indiscriminate effects.
Yet explosive weapons in populated areas, which consistently kill and injure more civilians than these already prohibited systems, remain widely used and legally permitted. UN disarmament and protection of civilians work has repeatedly warned that this 'urbanisation of conflict' and the routine use of wide area explosive weapons in cities are among the key drivers of civilian harm.
As wars unfold through news feeds and headlines, the public is exposed to constant images of airstrikes and shelling in cities, and can become desensitised to their impact.
Denormalisation means refusing that narrative. It involves:
Naming the civilian harm from explosive weapons in populated areas as systematic and avoidable
Challenging political and media language that hides this harm behind technical terms or abstract framing
Treating the large scale bombing of populated areas as morally and politically unacceptable even where it remains formally lawful on paper
By framing this harm as structural and avoidable, we create space for different choices on policy restraint, operational practice, and stronger legal rules, including full implementation of the 2022 political declaration on explosive weapons in populated areas and ultimately a full ban on their use. A concise overview by INEW is available here.
Denormalising explosive weapons in populated areas is a moral and political project that asks what we, as a global public, are prepared to accept in our name.