Chemical Weapons Watchdog wins Nobel Peace Prize

[Viking]

Most nobel prizes I come on where and bitch about how the winner isn't worthy and the prize is merely a tool for local norwegian politics and how the prize is being devalued. This time, however, it is different. This is the kind of award the prize was created for. I, for one, approve of this year's Nobel Peace Prize Winner.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24490925

Syria chemical weapons monitors win Nobel Peace Prize
COMMENTS (261)
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the body overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical arsenal, has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Nobel Committee said it was in honour of the OPCW's "extensive work to eliminate chemical weapons".
The OPCW, based in The Hague, was established to enforce the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
OPCW director general Ahmet Uzumcu said the award was a "great honour" and would spur it on in its work.
He said the deployment of chemical weapons in Syria had been a "tragic reminder that there remains much work to be done".
The OPCW recently sent inspectors to oversee the dismantling of Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons.
It is the first time OPCW inspectors have worked in an active war zone.
The watchdog picks up a gold medal and 8m Swedish kronor ($1.25m; £780,000) as winner of the most coveted of the Nobel honours.
'Vindication'
Announcing the award in Oslo, Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said it wanted to recognise the OPCW's "extensive work".
"The conventions and the work of the OPCW have defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law," he said.
"Recent events in Syria, where chemical weapons have again been put to use, have underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons."
The OPCW's Ahmet Uzumcu said the organisation had been working "with quiet determination to rid the world of these heinous weapons", away from the spotlight, for the past 16 years.
He said the Syria mission was the first time the OPCW had worked to such a short timeframe and in an ongoing conflict, and that it was "conscious of the enormous trust" placed on it by the international community.
Praising the commitment of his staff and the support of member states, he said the Nobel Peace Prize would "spur us to untiring effort, even stronger commitment and greater dedication" to bring about a world free of chemical weapons".
The head of the OPCW inspection team in Syria, Ake Sellstrom, said: "This is a powerful pat on the back that will strengthen the organisation's work in Syria."
The OPCW is made up of 189 member states and the principal role of its 500-strong staff is to monitor and destroy all existing chemical weapons.
It draws on a network of some of the best laboratories and scientists in the world to help it in its work, the BBC's science correspondent Pallab Ghosh says.
The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention has contributed to the destruction of nearly 80% of the world's chemical weapons stockpile.
Syria is expected to sign the treaty in the coming days.
French President Francois Hollande said the Nobel prize was a "vindication" of the international efforts in Syria and pledged continued support for the OPCW's work there and elsewhere.
Notable omission
There were a record 259 nominees for this year's Peace Prize, but the list remains a secret.
Pakistani schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousafzai and gynaecologist Denis Mukwege of the Democratic Republic of Congo had been tipped as favourites to take the award.
Others who had been listed as contenders were Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning), the US soldier convicted of giving classified documents to Wikileaks and Maggie Gobran, an Egyptian computer scientist who abandoned her academic career to become a Coptic Christian nun and founded the charity Stephen's Children.
But an hour before Friday's announcement, NRK reported the award would go to the OPCW.
The European Union won the prize in 2012 in recognition of its contribution to peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.
Previous Nobel Peace Prize laureates include anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, US President Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama and Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Nobel Committee has in the past publicly regretted never awarding the prize to Mahatma Gandhi, the pacifist leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule, even though he was nominated five times.

[Legbiter]

Should have given it to Putin. 

[Malthus]

The problem is that, once again, it is apparently being awarded for what the Committee hopes it will accomplish - disarmament in Syria - rather than for what it has actually accomplished.

[Brazen]

Definitely well-derserved.

Did you catch this story? Apparently the Nobel committee couldn't get hold of them to tell them they'd won 
http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/11/nobel-peace-prize-2013-winner-global-chemical-weapons-watchdog-wins-award-4142681/

[Viking]

The problem is that, once again, it is apparently being awarded for what the Committee hopes it will accomplish - disarmament in Syria - rather than for what it has actually accomplished.

I disagree. The OPCW has been working for years successfully on the issue. Syria has just made it much more topical.

[The Larch]

Definitely well-derserved.

Did you catch this story? Apparently the Nobel committee couldn't get hold of them to tell them they'd won 
http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/11/nobel-peace-prize-2013-winner-global-chemical-weapons-watchdog-wins-award-4142681/

I read somewhere that the announcement of the Physics one was delayed because they couldn't reach Higgs.

[Malthus]

The problem is that, once again, it is apparently being awarded for what the Committee hopes it will accomplish - disarmament in Syria - rather than for what it has actually accomplished.

I disagree. The OPCW has been working for years successfully on the issue. Syria has just made it much more topical.

That's not the sense I get from the article. Seems to me what they are saying is that the intent is to boost OPCW's work in Syria - work which has yet to be done. Certainly that is how outsiders are seeing it - the French have called it a "vindication" of the Syria plan.

Reading between the lines, I get the impression that of it wasn't for Syria, one of the other contenders would have taken the prize and the OPCW would have continued to labour in comparitive obscurity. 

None of which is to say that the OPCW isn't deserving, of course, only that as a generality the habit of awarding organizations and people for stuff they have yet to do can easily backfire.

[mongers]

I think the Pakistani schoolchild should have got it.

[Brazen]

I read somewhere that the announcement of the Physics one was delayed because they couldn't reach Higgs.

Higgs went hiking in Scotland to deliberately avoid the fuss. It's what he was doing when he came up with his theory, apparently.

I overheard this cool conversation on my commute the day after it was announced: "My dad was part of the team that proved Higgs, so we had a quiet celebration last night." 

[Brazen]

I'm not one to patronise the elderly, especially individuals far cleverer than I can ever dream of being, but aww, bless 

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Prof Peter Higgs has revealed he did not know he had won the award until a woman congratulated him in the street.

Prof Higgs, who does not own a mobile phone, said a former neighbour had pulled up in her car as he was returning from lunch in Edinburgh.

He added: "She congratulated me on the news and I said 'oh, what news?'"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24493400

[crazy canuck]

I think the Pakistani schoolchild should have got it.

That would also fall into the categorie of what Malthus is talking about.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't get it Puff.  They're an international HAZMAT disposal team.  Sure, they are currently working, or will soon be working, in a war zone, but that describes plenty of people.

[The Brain]

The problem is that, once again, it is apparently being awarded for what the Committee hopes it will accomplish - disarmament in Syria - rather than for what it has actually accomplished.

I disagree. The OPCW has been working for years successfully on the issue. Syria has just made it much more topical.

They were so successful that hundreds of people are dead from chemical weapons in Syria?

[Sheilbh]

I don't normally like the prize going to groups but this seems fair.

[Viking]

I don't get it Puff.  They're an international HAZMAT disposal team.  Sure, they are currently working, or will soon be working, in a war zone, but that describes plenty of people.

They HAVE HAZMAT disposal teams. This is the organization which works to ban chemical weapons. When you sign up to the chemical weapons convention you join this organization.