PRESS RELEASE: Pax Christi USA applauds nomination of Douglas Roche for Nobel Peace Prize

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, D.C.—Former Canadian Senator and Ambassador to the United Nations’ Disarmament Committee, Douglas Roche, O.C. (Order of Canada) has been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize by the International Peace Bureau (IPB) based in Geneva Switzerland.

The IPB’s letter to the Nobel Committee reads: “We believe he is eminently eligible for the Nobel Peace Prize on account of the multiple outstanding roles he has played, both in the ‘official’ arenas and as a leader in a variety of civil society endeavours … as founder or co-founder of Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), Middle Powers Initiative (MPI), and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) – all of which have played very significant high-level roles in the global disarmament movement. Aside from existing Nobel laureates, it is hard to think of a single individual who has worked as hard for disarmament as he, and with such persistence and determination, at the top levels of world politics.”

Ambassador Roche has been a long-time advisor to the Vatican on disarmament issues, particularly nuclear disarmament, serving as a member of the Holy See’s delegation to the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference and its preparatory committee meetings for more than two decades.

“Pax Christi USA is very excited by this announcement,” said Dave Robinson, Executive Director of Pax Christi USA. “Ambassador Roche has been a good friend and ally of Pax Christi. He has been a leading voice and active participant in the Vatican’s calls for nuclear abolition and a constant source of inspiration and leadership among Catholics working for a nuclear weapons free world.”

In 1998, Ambassador Roche served as an advisor to Pax Christi USA bishop members in the development of their statement The Morality of Nuclear Deterrence. More than 100 U.S. Catholic Bishops released the statement rejecting what they saw as “the institutionalization of deterrence” and calling for a treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons in the same way that chemical and biological weapons had been outlawed.