“a message that is not totally useless”, greets an international relations specialist

The Nobel committee insisted on “the need to maintain the nuclear taboo”. However, “the nuclear issue is far from being outdated,” recognizes Bertrand Badie, professor emeritus of universities at Sciences Po Paris.

“I think it is not completely useless to send this message about the continued risks of nuclear weapons,” analysis Friday October 11 on franceinfo Bertrand Badie, professor emeritus of universities at Sciences Po Paris, specialist in international relations, after the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo. The NGO brings together survivors of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. “The prize this year is one that emphasizes the need to maintain the nuclear taboo. And we all have a responsibility (to do so), especially the nuclear powers.”justified the Nobel committee.

According to Bertrand Badie, the “role of the Nobel Prize” is also “show that threats are diverse, complex and are not only linked to the immediacy of the event” because“we are in a context where war is very present and we have chosen to bypass both the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Ukrainian conflict”, points out the international relations specialist. Within the “Nobel committee”There is “still a certain dissensus, a certain fear of committing and emblematizing peace through one of the causes that a possible winner would represent and support.”

Nevertheless, for Bertrand Badie, there are reasons which explain why the Nihon Hidankyo organization, “highly estimable but not so well known to international public opinion”, was rewarded. “We are talking more and more about the use of nuclear weapons because since the end of the Cold War we tended to consider that this issue was no longer a burning issue”he says. Gold, “in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict we never stop talking about the possible use of atomic weapons.” We also talk about it with “the atomic weapon that Israel has” And “which Iran claims to be in possession of.

“It seems to me that this is a message sent” also “to international public opinion in general and to the leaders of the planet to say that the nuclear issue is far from being an over or outdated issue with the end of the Cold War. But that it is in the process of resurfacing in a more anarchic context and therefore less controllable”This “which perhaps involves an effort of reflection and mobilization”, adds Bertrand Badie.

“The Nobel Prize is used for many things, notably to raise awareness, to bring out issues that, spontaneously, we do not consider to be priorities.”

Bertrand Badie, professor emeritus of universities at Sciences Po Paris

at franceinfo

But the specialist in international relations feels “a certain frustration in relation to other issues, such as human rights, freedom of the press. We had talked in particular about Julien Assange (founder of Wikileaks) as a possible winner”recalls Bertrand Badie.