Collaboration and confrontation: the Norwegian humanitarian initiative experience

摘要

The award of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) was the culmination of a ten-year long struggle to put the worst weapon of mass destruction on equal legal and moral footing with other inhuman weapons, such as chemical and biological weapons, landmines and cluster munitions. Earlier in 2017 the so-called humanitarian initiative had resulted in the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), despite fierce resistance from nuclear weapon states and their allies, among them NATO-member Norway. However, in a seemingly contradictory fashion Norway some years earlier was pivotal in launching the humanitarian disarmament initiative.