PHOTO: A few of the Hiroshima survivors who took part in the negotiations for the TPNW at the United Nations in New York in 2017.
OCTOBER 11, 2024: The Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 was awarded today to Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese organization of A and H bomb survivors, known as hibakusha. Nihon Hidankyo played an important role in getting the world to negotiate and adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) that bans everything to do with nuclear weapons. The TPNW has now been ratified by 73 countries and a further 25 are in the process of ratifying.
August 6th and 9th, 2025, will mark the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed over 200,000 people. Those who survived those bombings, the hibakusha, have lived with cancers and other health issues – but also with the social ostracism of being one of those affected by the bombing. Very few of those who survived the bombings in 1945 are still alive, so it is fitting that they should receive the Nobel Peace Prize before there are none left.
In awarding the Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, the Nobel Committee is clearly highlighting, once again, the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and the increasing risk that they will be used again. Any use of a nuclear weapon, anywhere in the world, would be a humanitarian catastrophe of unparalleled proportions, and yet nine countries, including the United States, are currently expanding and deepening their nuclear arsenals and rationale for using them. Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine echo similar threats by the US to use them against North Korea. Both countries are pushing the world to the brink of nuclear confrontation.
Meanwhile, Japan – the only country to have suffered the devastating consequences of a nuclear attack – still refuses to join the TPNW and continues to join the US in its warmongering against both North Korea and China. The Japanese constitution forbids Japan from taking part in war and the people of Japan are overwhelmingly in favor of their country joining the TPNW. Hopefully this Nobel Peace Prize will strengthen the Japanese peace movement and their resolve to push their government to live up to their own constitution and the will of the people.
