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Joseph Underhill in Support of ICAN’s 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Recognition

ICAN executive director Beatrice Fihnand steering committee members Daniel Hogsta and Grethe Ostern.
Photo: Martial Trezzini, Keystone Via AP

Joseph Underhill, program director of the Nobel Peace Prize Forum talks with the Star Tribune’s John Rash about how ICAN’s award “fits very squarely within the mandate and framework of the Nobel Peace Prize as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel, given its emphasis on disarmament, peace conferences and promotion of fraternity among nations.”

Geneva-based International Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for “its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”

Weapons are “seen as an ongoing concern,” but that the Nobel committee was clearly “signaling concern about the current risks of nuclear conflict given the level of tension and the rhetoric around the Korean Peninsula and the leadership in both the U.S. and North Korea” adds Underhill, who is also an associate professor of political science at Augsburg University, where the Nobel Peace Prize Forum took place last month.

See full story at the Star Tribune site.