“Nobel peace prize 2017: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons wins award – live”, The Guardian

Published October 6, 2017

Jon Henley,, London, Friday 6 October 2017

(Norwegian Nobel Committee says award made in recognition of work to draw attention to catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons)

The committee’s decision comes at a critical time when the US president, Donald Trump, has threatened to decertify and unravel the Iran nuclear deal, which could trigger a second nuclear standoff in the midst of North Korean crisis, writes my colleague Saeed Kamali Dehghan:

Supporters of the Iran nuclear agreement, which settled a decade-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme and averted the risk of yet another war in the Middle East, have argued it is vital to preserve it at the time of simmering tensions with North Korea, which has escalated the crisis by conducing its sixth nuclear test and a series of intermediate and intercontinental missile tests.

Trump has reportedly decided to decertify Iran’s compliance with the landmark nuclear deal next week. On Thursday, he told a meeting of US military leaders that Tehran was not living up to the “spirit of the agreement” and cryptically added they were witnessing “the calm before the storm”.

The European Union, in contrast, has said that it is doing everything it can to salvage the deal in the event of a US withdrawal. The EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said last month after facilitating a meeting of foreign ministers in New York, that Iran was abiding by the agreement and “there is no need to reopen the agreement because it’s fully delivering”.

In remarks which appeared to be aimed at Trump’s threats, she said: “The agreement is being implemented. It’s working. It’s delivering. It’s not for one party or the other to certify this. It’s for the IAEA, with its technical independent role, to provide us reports and it’s for the entire Joint Commission to monitor the implementation of all this.”

Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Tehran, said this award is “a challenge to the International Community, led by the UN Security Council, to protect this historic non-proliferation agreement [Iran deal], which is vital for regional peace, from its detractors.”

10:37 AM – Oct 5, 2017

Fihn has a nice line in nuclear non-proliferation humour. This was one of her tweets yesterday, on the nine nuclear powers who boycotted the treaty negotiations:

Nine nuclear-armed states walked in to a bar, because it was set too low.

ICAN been “sounding the alarm over the massive dangers posed by nuclear weapons and campaigning for a global ban” for the past decade, the AFP news agency reported when it interviewed the group’s head this week.

Although the nuclear treaty was a significant victory, actual disarmament is still a long way off. “We’re not done yet… The job isn’t done until nuclear weapons are gone,” the organisations head, Beatrice Fihn, told AFP.

Pointing to the current nuclear standoff between Washington and Pyongyang as “a wake-up call”, she insisted on the urgent need to disarm the world’s 15,000 or so nuclear weapons. “Nuclear weapons have the risk of literally ending the world. As long as they exist, the risk will be there, and eventually our luck will run out.”

Based in the offices of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, ICAN works with 468 non-governmental organisations across 101 countries, including rights, development, environmental and peace groups.

It has an annual budget of around $1 million and is funded by private donations as well as the European Union and countries including Norway, Switzerland, Germany and the Vatican.

“The more countries we can rally to reject nuclear weapons and the more public opinion changes to think that this is unacceptable, the harder it is going to be for the nuclear-armed states to justify it,” Fihn told AFP.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s choice amounts to a reprimand to the world’s nine nuclear-armed powers, all of whom boycotted the negotiations for the treaty – reached in July at the United Nations– and described the treaty as dangerous.

The treaty was endorsed by 122 countries at the UN headquarters in New York after months of talks an in the face of strong opposition from the nuclear-armed states and their allies.

None of the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons – the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel – took part in the negotiations.

And the treaty will only enter into force when 50 countries have signed and ratified it, a process that could take months or years.

Updated at 5.24am EDT

Well that was a surprise. Most of the pre-announcement chatter had been predicting the winners would be Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, and Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, for their part in the Iran nuclear deal.

Instead the committee has chosen ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a global group working to promote adherence to, and full implementation of, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

The campaign, which helped bring about the treaty, was launched in 2007 and today counts 468 partner organisations in 101 countries. The treaty is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons.

ICAN anti-nuclear weapons campaign wins 2017 Nobel Peace prize

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has been awarded the 2107 Nobel Peace prize.

The chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, said the award had been made in recognition of the group’s work “to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”.

The Guardian