Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Japanese Atomic Bomb Survivors’ Group

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo.

This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the peace prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

On the awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wished to acknowledge one encouraging fact: No nuclear weapon has been used in war in nearly 80 years.

The extraordinary efforts of Nihon Hidankyo and other representatives of the Hibakusha have contributed greatly to the establishment of the nuclear taboo.

It is therefore alarming that today this taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure, said the Norwegian Nobel Committee

The nuclear powers are modernising and upgrading their arsenals; new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons; and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare. At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen, it added.