Council for Peace with Justice and Sydney Peace Foundation
AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT EMBARRASSED BY ‘OUR’ NOBEL PEACE PRIZE?
Australia should be proud of our association with the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize but so far Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop have made no comment.
The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize has just been awarded to ICAN, the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons.
ICAN is now an international organisation but it started with a group of Melbourne peace campaigners in 2005. The Prize
was announced on 6 October 2017. The Greens and Labor have offered their congratulations but so far there’s been no
comment from the Government.
ICAN has worked with the United Nations and other agencies on developing a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Many nations support this treaty but so far Australia is not among them.
“I think that the government must be deeply embarrassed by ‘our’ Nobel Peace Prize” says Professor Stuart Rees, veteran peace activist, founder of the Sydney Peace Foundation and member of the Council for Peace with Justice.
“The government’s support for nuclear disarmament has been been luke warm to say the least. Julie Bishop did not even
attend the signing ceremony of the Prohibition Treaty at the United Nations last month. Australians like to regard
themselves as good world citizens, but with our current cruel policy on refugees and the vacuum in our policy on climate
change, at present we do not rank highly on the international scale as humanitarians.The fact that there has been no
official celebration of the Nobel Peace Prize must only further reduce our status.”
“Most Australians want to see the end of the nuclear threat. We should not be embarrassed, but rather be proud of the
Australians who have achieved so much in working to abolish nuclear weapons” says Professor Rees.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was endorsed by 122 countries at the United Nations headquarters in New
York in July earlier this year despite strong opposition from nuclear-armed states and their allies (including
Australia).
Under the treaty, signatory states must agree not to develop, test, manufacture or possess nuclear weapons, or threaten
to use them, or allow any nuclear arms to be stationed on their territory.
Once the treaty has been ratified by 50 states it passes into international law. The international law banning landmines
did not have universal support when first enacted but has since proved highly effective
The Council for Peace with Justice and the Sydney Peace Foundation urge the Australian government to immediately reverse its decision to oppose the prohibition treaty. The treaty does
not (as argued by the government) undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but reinforces it and makes it
meaningful.