Japanese Organisation Nihon Hidankyo Wins 2024 Nobel Peace Prize

Oslo: The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo, an organisation representing survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, on Friday. 

Prize announcement took place on Friday, October 11, 2024 at 11:00 CEST or 2:30 PM Indian Standard Time. 

 "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.", said the Nobel Prize on official X handle 

The group got the most prestigious award for its work in advocating for a nuclear-free world and for its powerful witness testimony on the horrors of nuclear warfare.

Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the award was made as the “taboo against the use of nuclear weapon is under pressure.” He said the Nobel committee “wishes to honour all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace.”

 Efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons have been honoured 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 against a backdrop of devastating conflicts raging in the world, notably in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.

The Nobel Peace Prize is usually announced on the Friday of the first full week in October. The Norwegian Nobel Committee selects the winners from a list of nominees. The committee is made up of professors from Norwegian universities, the Institute's director, and research director. 

The Nobel prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (USD 1 million). Unlike the other Nobel prizes that are selected and announced in Stockholm, founder Alfred Nobel decreed the peace prize be decided and awarded in Oslo by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee.