The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on October 11 to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organiza-tion of survivors of the U.S. ato-mic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its “efforts to achi-eve a world free of nuclear wea-pons.”
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Commi-ttee, said the award was assigned to the grassroot organization as the “taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pre-ssure.” He said the Committee “wishes to honour all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have cho-sen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace.” Efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons have been ho-noured in the past by the Nobel Committee.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the peace prize in 2017, and in 1995 Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs won for “their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms.” This year’s prize was awarded agai-nst a backdrop of devastating conflicts raging in the world, notably in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan. “It is very clear that threats of using nuclear weapons are putting pressure on the important international norm, the taboo of using nuclear weapons,” Watne Frydnes said.