Japan Data

Japan’s Nobel Laureates: Hidankyō Wins 2024 Peace Prize

Politics Society

The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize has gone to Nihon Hidankyō, a grassroots organization representing survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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On October 11, 2024, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyō, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations. Founded in 1956, the group is a grassroots movement representing the hibakusha, or survivors of the August 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and working to eradicate nuclear weapons from the modern world.

The Nobel Committee gave high praise to Hidankyō’s work: “These historical witnesses have helped to generate and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons. The Hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons.”

With its selection as a Nobel prize winner, the organization becomes the first group to join a list of 29 Japanese-born individual laureates in peace, the sciences, and literature. A half-century has passed since the last Japanese Nobel Peace Prize winner was named, former Prime Minister Satō Eisaku, in part for his own stance against nuclear weapons.

Year of Award Category Name and Cited Accomplishment
2024 Peace Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyō); for “its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”
2021 Physics Syukuro Manabe (Manabe Shukurō), US citizen, senior meteorologist, Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University; for “groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems.”
2019 Chemistry Yoshino Akira, honorary fellow, Asahi Kasei, and professor, Meijō University; for “the development of lithium-ion batteries.”
2018 Physiology or Medicine Honjo Tasuku, distinguished professor, Kyoto University; for “discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.”
2017 Literature Kazuo Ishiguro, British citizen, author: “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”
2016 Physiology or Medicine Ōsumi Yoshinori, professor emeritus, Tokyo Institute of Technology: “for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy,” how unnecessary or dysfunctional proteins in cells are degraded and recycled.
2015 Physics Kajita Takaaki, director, Institute for Cosmic Radiation Research, University of Tokyo: “for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass.”
Physiology or Medicine Ōmura Satoshi, distinguished professor emeritus, Kitasato University: for “discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites.”
2014 Physics Akasaki Isamu, professor, Meijō University; professor emeritus, Nagoya University: “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.”
Amano Hiroshi, professor, Nagoya University: for the same.
Nakamura Shūji, US citizen, professor, University of California Santa Barbara: for the same.
2012 Physiology or Medicine Yamanaka Shin’ya, professor and director, Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University: “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.”
2010 Chemistry Negishi Eiichi, distinguished professor, Purdue University: “for palladium-catalyzed cross-couplings in organic synthesis.”
Suzuki Akira, professor emeritus, Hokkaidō University: for the same.
2008 Physics Nanbu Yōichirō, US citizen, professor emeritus, University of Chicago: “for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics.”
Kobayashi Makoto, professor emeritus, Japanese High Energy Accelerator Research Organization: “for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature” (Kobayashi-Masukawa Theory of CP violation).
Masukawa Toshihide, professor emeritus, Kyoto University: for the same.
Chemistry Shimomura Osamu, professor emeritus, Boston University: “for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP.”
2002 Chemistry Tanaka Kōichi, Shimadzu Corporation fellow: for “development of soft desorption ionization methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules.”
Physics Koshiba Masatoshi, professor emeritus, University of Tokyo: “for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos” (using Kamiokande facility in Gifu Prefecture).
2001 Chemistry Noyori Ryōji, professor, Nagoya University School of Science: for “work on chirally catalyzed hydrogenation reactions.”
2000 Chemistry Shirakawa Hideki, professor emeritus, University of Tsukuba: “for the discovery and development of conductive polymers.”
1994 Literature Ōe Kenzaburō, author: “who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today.”
1987 Physiology or Medicine Tonegawa Susumu, professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “for his discovery of the genetic principle for generation of antibody diversity.”
1981 Chemistry Fukui Ken’ichi, professor, Kyoto University School of Engineering: for theories “concerning the course of chemical reactions.”
1974 Peace Satō Eisaku, prime minister of Japan: for his renunciation of the nuclear option for Japan and his efforts to further regional reconciliation.
1973 Physics Esaki Reona, researcher, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center: for “experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively.”
1968 Literature Kawabata Yasunari, author: “for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind.”
1965 Physics Tomonaga Shin’ichirō, professor, Tokyo University of Education: for “fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles.”
1949 Physics Yukawa Hideki, professor, Kyoto University School of Science: “for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces.”

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo: Mimaki Toshiyuki, co-chairperson of Nihon Hidankyō, speaks to the press in Hiroshima on October 11, 2024, after the group received the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts. © Jiji.)

atomic bomb literature peace science Nobel Peace Prize Nobel Prize