2002 (MMII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2002nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 2nd year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 3rd year of the 2000s decade.
After the September 11 attacks of the previous year, foreign policy and international relations were generally united in combatting al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. The United States especially was a leading force in combatting terrorist groups. 2002 also saw the signing and establishment of many international agreements and institutions, most notably the International Criminal Court, the African Union, the Russian-American Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, and the Eurozone.
The global economy, partly due to the September 11 attacks, generally stagnated or declined. Stock indices, such as the American Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Japanese Nikkei 225 both ended the year lower than they had started. In the later parts of 2002, the world saw the beginning of a SARS epidemic, which would go on to affect mostly China, Europe, and North America.[1][2]
The world population on January 1, 2002, was estimated to be 6.272 billion people, and it increased to 6.353 billion people by January 1, 2003.[3] An estimated 134.0 million births and 52.5 million deaths took place in 2002.[3] The average global life expectancy was 67.1 years, an increase of 0.3 years from 2001.[3] The rate of child mortality was 7.05%, a decrease of 0.27pp from 2001.[4] 26.85% of people were living in extreme poverty, a decrease of 1.40pp from 2000.[5]
The number of global refugees was approximately 12 million at the beginning of 2002, but it declined to 10.3 million by the end of the year. Approximately 2.4 million refugees were repatriated in 2002, of which 2 million were Afghan. 293,000 additional refugees were displaced in 2002, primarily from Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Somalia, Ivory Coast, and the Central African Republic.[6]
There were 31 recognised armed conflicts in 2002, a net decrease from the previous year: seven conflicts ended in 2001, while conflicts in Angola, Congo, and Ivory Coast began or resumed in 2002.[7] The deadliest conflicts in 2002 were those in Burundi, Colombia, Kashmir, Nepal, and Sudan.[7] Among developed nations in 2002, national defense shifted toward counterterrorism after the September 11 attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan the previous year. Conflicts in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Israel, and the Philippines were directly related to countering Islamic terrorism.[8]: 87