CNS Congratulates Nihon Hidankyo on Winning the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize

October 14, 2024

The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) congratulates Nihon Hidankyo on being awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for its tireless efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons. Since its founding in 1956, Nihon Hidankyo has consistently sought to raise global awareness about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons through testimony by the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hidankyo has placed special emphasis on the need to educate younger people about nuclear dangers.

CNS also attaches great importance to educating the next generation of nonproliferation and disarmament experts, and it shares the determination of Nihon Hidankyo to secure a safer and more secure world without nuclear weapons.

CNS is honored to have partnered with Nihon Hidankyo on various education and training programs. They include the Critical Issues Forum (CIF), which promotes disarmament and nonproliferation education for high school students from around the world, and the Summer School on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament for young diplomats in Latin America and the Caribbean. We are especially grateful to Ms. Masako Wada, Assistant Secretary General of Nihon Hidankyo, who shared her testimony with our students and program participants on numerous occasions. Through such opportunities, CNS has witnessed the power of hibakusha testimonies and reaffirmed the importance of youth education.

It is hard to be optimistic at a time when nuclear dangers are at their highest levels since the end of the Cold War. CNS applauds the selection of Nipon Hidankyo by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, and it very much hopes that this award will raise global awareness about the urgent need to take bold steps to promote peace and security in a world free of nuclear weapons.

Additional Information:

Hibakusha group receives Nobel Peace Prize for “demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again, Bulletin of Atomic Scientist

Ms. Masako Wada shared her testimonial at the 2022 CIF Spring Conference, and the 2021 CIF Speaker Series event (online)

Ms Wada shared her testimonial at the Summer School on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament for Diplomats in Latin America and the Caribbean co-organized by CNS in partnership with the Mexican Foreign Ministry, the agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin American and the Caribbean (OPANAL) and the Matías Romero Institute in Mexico City in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.