"I believe there is a link between the peacefulness and the wealth of nations and therefore business has a key role to play in peace,” said Steve Killelea, who commissioned the study from the Economist Intelligence Unit.

But while the UAE, with its high ranking strengthens Killelea's hypothesis, the United States, with the world's highest gross domestic product, refuted this argument by ranking only 96th on the list. The United Kingdom fared better, with a ranking of 49.

The UAE was the third most peaceful Gulf country, below Oman and Qatar, which were at 22 and 30 respectively. Kuwait at 46, Bahrain at 62 and Saudi Arabia at 90 all placed below the UAE. Larry Woods, professor of international politics at the American University in Sharjah, said: "The results are somewhat surprising, and indicate that we may not know as much as we thought about many countries. How is Chile at 16, while the US is at 96?

"The top and bottom 10 are less surprising, but in between there is much to ponder, such as the local contrasts of Oman, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain.” Countries were ranked on 24 criteria including mistrust between citizens, strength of internal security and police, number of homicides, number of jail inmates, access to weapons, organised conflict, violent demonstrations, vio lent crime, political instability, respect for human rights, volume of weapons trade, terror acts, deaths from internal and external conflict, military expenditure, armed services personnel, UN deployments, non-UN deployments, number of heavy weapons, military capability, percentage of displaced people in the population and its relations with neighbouring countries.

The index – the first of its kind – has the support of Queen Noor of Jordan, the Dalai Lama, former US President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The main findings of the report show that small, stable countries in regional blocs are most likely to get a higher ranking. (Emirates Today)