According to Henry Kissinger, ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. Likewise, bad Nobel Peace Prize winners sully the award itself, with Henry Kissinger being one of them. May I remind the reader that Gandhi, for instance, was never awarded?
In no way did I expect the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) to win the prize. And it was nothing but deserved. Most journalists were keen to wager on Pope Francis, on the UN high commission for refugees, on the Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, on the Iranian foreign minister, or on ACLU, which would surely have annoyed Trump. Speaking of Trump, both he and Putin were nominated for the recognition, but that was already too much of a joke. It is only honest to admit that any of the aforementioned candidates, except for that pair of blond demagogues, could have been a good choice. Nevertheless, ICAN enchanted me three years ago, when I started supporting the campaign and included a permanent link in this blog.
This was the time. The efforts made since the resolution Taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations, voted in October of 2016, with the shameful opposition of 38 UN members —including, as painful as it seems, Japan—, had to be acknowledged. Right before Christmas, the UN General Assembly confirmed the negotiations on a treaty banning nuclear weapons to take place in 2017.

Undoubtedly, it has been such an active year. Negotiations began in March, exactly five months after the UN resolution had been passed. Finally, members accepted a treaty categorically prohibiting nuclear weapons in July, a treaty that heads of many states would start signing in September. We know what happened this month. How delighted I was when I accessed Twitter on the 6th of October! I could not believe my eyes.
Thank you, thank you so much. Keep working for what matters most.