At the outset of a new century, it may be time to promote a new idea on the world stage, which is that warring parties acquire a responsibility, not simply to take measures to minimise civilian casualties as they carry out warfare, but provide a full, detailed and public record of all those that are tragically assigned to the category of “collateral damage”. Surely now we should all be able to agree that in a world which claims to uphold civilised values no innocent victim of war should ever go unrecorded.