Statement on Nobel Peace Prize 2017

For a secure world

On October 6th, the Nobel Committee awarded ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize “for its work in drawing 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.”

This reward is of crucial importance for all those who struggle for a world of peace, cooperation and solidarity. The jury was sensitive to this aspiration of the peoples of all around the world.

In the current moment of rising nuclear tensions, the Nobel Prize award to ICAN acquires a significant importance. It is an encouragement to continue our action for a world that favors negotiation, a secure world without weapons of mass destruction.

As scientists and citizens, the members of the WFSW are particularly proud to mention that one of the main aims of the founders of our organization, John Desmond Bernal and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, was the eradication of nuclear weapons. Our permanent commitment concerning the demilitarization of scientific research pursues this aim.

In addition we should not forget that the colossal budgets saved could be allocated to the welfare of humankind, for example in the eradication of poverty or the research on new energies.

The WFSW urges its affiliated organizations to press the governments of their countries to ratify the Nuclear Weapons Treaty, adopted last July by the UN, and to engage in a global process of destruction of nuclear weapons.