Nobel Peace Prize 2024 awarded to Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Friday announced that the Nobel Peace Prize 2024 has been awarded to the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo for its efforts towards a world free of nuclear weapons.

Nihon Hidankyo is a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as Hibakusha. Upon announcing this year’s winner, the Norwegian Nobel Committee acknowledged that the group has turned their painful experiences into a source of hope and engagement for peace.

“They help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons,” the committee said, praising their extraordinary efforts in establishing a nuclear taboo.

Amid escalating global tensions and regional wars, the committee noted that this taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure.

“These historical witnesses have helped to generate and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories…,” the committee highlighted.

The global movement against nuclear weapons, which emerged from the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945, has tirelessly raised awareness about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons use, the committee added.

How was the Nihon Hidankyo organisation created?

In the catastrophic incidents of 1945, two American atomic bombs killed an estimated 120,000 inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Years later, in 1956, local Hibakusha associations, along with victims of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific, formed the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations. This name was shortened in Japanese to Nihon Hidankyo. It would later become the largest and most influential Hibakusha organisation in Japan.

Nihon Hidankyo has actively promoted nuclear disarmament through thousands of witness accounts, resolutions, public appeals, and annual delegations to international forums, including the United Nations.

Next year will mark the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.