You may say I’m a dreamer …

The elation of those in Melbourne who helped establish the now Geneva-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, is understandable. But they should not be surprised by the response to the award. As the world confronts the alarming threat of nuclear conflagration over North Korea, the Nobel Committee in Oslo has chosen once again to reward not success but the vagaries of naive hope over reality.

This is not to demean the idealism of ICAN’s founders. But it is to note that while the Nobel Committee has chosen to laud the organisation for its work to “stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons”, the reality as opposed to the aspiration is that, in the 10 years since it was founded, ICAN has not been able to reduce the world’s stockpile of 15,000 nuclear warheads by even one. The “success” the Nobel Committee claims for ICAN in getting the UN to approve a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons hardly amounts to much. None of the 122 nations that backed the treaty — including the Republic of Congo, Fiji, Kiribati, Nepal and non-existent Palestine — has nuclear weapons. The known nuclear nations — the US, Britain, France, China, Russia, India, Pakistan and North Korea — ignored the treaty. So did the NATO nations and Australia. This diminishes its significance and makes it realistically of little value. The Nobel Committee says it “is aware that an international legal prohibition will not in itself eliminate a single nuclear weapon”. With nuclear deterrence still a vital element in global politics, there is no realistic prospect of the nuclear states disarming.

There were better candidates. ICAN was not even on a shortlist that included the White Helmets, who demonstrably have done such great work helping civilians in Syria. It is high time the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize for real achievement rather than dreamy hopes, grandstanding or moralising. It has made wise decisions previously in recognising Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010, Desmond Tutu in 1984, Lech Walesa in 1983 and Andrei Sakharov in 1975. Not this year.