Nobel Peace Prize Statement – ICAN UK – 6 October 2017

ICAN UK represents the British-based NGOs who are partners of ICAN, a civil society network of over 450 organisations in one hundred countries.

Dr Rebecca Johnson, an original co-chair of ICAN and member of the International Steering Group based in the UK, said:

“We thank the Nobel Committee for recognising and honouring ICAN and the thousands of people in our international network that have worked so hard to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.   The nuclear threats being issued by President Trump and North Korea remind us that nuclear sabre rattling can lead to nuclear war through arrogance or miscalculation. With British civil society at the forefront of nuclear disarmament efforts for so many years, this Nobel Award encourages us to redouble our efforts to persuade the British government to sign the UN Nuclear Prohibition Treaty, cancel Trident and take the lead to eliminate all of these abhorrent weapons of mass destruction.”

Professor David McCoy, physician and former director of Medact, an ICAN-UK partner, said:

“Nuclear weapons are an unacceptable threat to human health and global security – they have no place in the modern world.  The UK government should be leading international efforts to get rid of nuclear weapons instead of boycotting them. Health professionals are calling on Government to scrap Trident and spend the money on the NHS.

Richard Moyes, Managing Director of UK NGO Article 36 – part of ICAN’s International Steering Group, said:

“The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize highlights the importance of this new treaty at a time when the threat of nuclear weapons is more pressing than ever in recent decades.  ICAN focused attention on the humanitarian impact that the use of these weapons would cause – with just a single weapon threatening to kill and injure hundreds of thousands of people and to poison their environment for the future.  Despite the politics of these weapons, the scale of humanitarian suffering that they can cause means they cannot be considered acceptable, and that is why ICAN here in the UK and internationally has worked for them to be banned.”

Kate Hudson of ICAN partner CND said “This Nobel Peace Prize commits all of us to bring the UK on board the historic UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and take the lead by scrapping Trident.”

Please contact Dr Rebecca Johnson, +44 7733 360955 or Clare Conboy, +44 7507 415987 [email protected]