Lay Down Your Arms

The Lay Down your Arms Association was incorporated and registered in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2014. A main project to start with is The Nobel Peace Prize Watch.

Purpose – Lay Down Your Arms Association

Peace is a common wish for all humanity, it must become our common demand. Peace is a binding legal obligation for all nations, it must become their common practice.

Experience tells us that if we prepare for war we get war. To achieve peace we must prepare for peace. Yet all nations continue to spend astronomic sums and incur extreme risks on a flawed concept of peace by military means. What the world most urgently needs is a common, co-operative security system to replace weapons and endless preparations for violence and war.

For centuries peace activists have claimed that peace through disarmament is necessary and, indeed, the only road to real security. Alfred Nobel decided to promote and support this idea when, in his will of 1895, he included “the prize for the champions of peace” and entrusted the Norwegian Parliament with a key role in the promotion and realization of his purpose. The Norwegians proudly undertook the assignment, further described in the will by language on “creating the brotherhood of nations, ”disarmament,” and “peace congresses.”

Nobel´s plan for preventing future wars thus was that nations must cooperate on disarmament and commit to solving all differences through negotiation or compulsory adjudication, a culture of peace that would free the world from its current addiction to violence and war. With today´s military technologies it is a matter of imperative urgency for the world to seriously consider committing to the idea of Alfred Nobel and Bertha von Suttner.

Suttner was the leading champion of peace at the time and it was her entreaties that led Nobel to establish the prize in support of the peace ideas that need a fresh restart. Taking its name from Suttner´s bestselling novel, “Lay down your arms – Die Waffen Nieder” a first goal for the network is to reclaim the Nobel prize for the “champions of peace” and the specific road to peace that Nobel had in mind and intended to support.  

Actions, Activities

- Nobel Peace Prize Watch

A. What is our special role?

All peace movement efforts for reduction or abolition of armaments depend on arguments in a democratic mobilization of public opinion. So also does The Nobel Peace Prize Watch. Our special advantage is that we not only argue that humanity must, for the sake of the survival of life on the planet, find a way to eliminate weapons, warriors and wars. In addition we make a legal argument – Nobel wanted to support a specific approach to peace – certain people have a legal entitlement by his will. Today the prize is in the hands of its political opponents. We wish to use legal means to get back the money that once was given to the cause of peace by demilitarization of international relations.

B. What are our plans?

The association shall seek to induce political decision-makers to address the imperative urgency of a new international system. To this end we will disseminate information and seek to increase public awareness of how all the nations of the world continue to be locked in power games and a never ending race for superiority in military forces and technology. This approach consumes astronomic sums of money, wastes resources that could serve human needs, and the idea that it gives security is an illusion. Modern weapons represent an imminent threat to the survival of life on the planet. We live in a constant emergency.
The answer must lie in a deep change of attitudes and an international system where international law and institutions lay the ground for trust and co-operation in a demilitarized world.
We distribute information by articles, books and lectures or public debates, we introduce proposals and requests in appropriate fora, including submitting issues to adjudication in administrative agencies or courts of law.
The Nobel Peace Prize Watch builds on research into the actual intention of Nobel published in books by Norwegian lawyer and author Fredrik S. Heffermehl. The project welcomes members, co-operation with like-minded organizations, and financial support.

Board

The Association was incorporated and registered in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2014. Founding members and board in intitial phase are Tomas Magnusson (Sweden) and Fredrik S. Heffermehl (Norway).

Fredrik S. Heffermehl, Oslo, Norway, lawyer and author
Former member of the IPB, International Peace Bureau, Steering Committee, 1985 to 2000. Vice president of IALANA, International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms. Former president of the Norwegian Peace Council 1985 to 2000. Published Peace is Possible (English IPB, 2000 – with 16 translations). In 2008 published first known legal analysis of the content of the Nobel peace prize. In a new book two years later, The Nobel Peace Prize. What Nobel Really Wanted included a study of Norwegian politics and the repression of his views (Praeger, 2010. Exists in 4 translations, Chinese, Finnish, Spanish, Swedish).
Phone: +47 917 44 783, e-mail, website: http://www.nobelwill.org

Tomas Magnusson, Gothenburg, Sweden,
After 20 years on the IPB, International Peace Bureau, Steering committee, was President from 2006 to 2013. Earlier President of SPAS, the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society. A journalist by education, he has spent most of his life by working voluntarily and professionally with peace, development and migration issues.
Phone: +46 708 293197

International Advisory Board

Richard Falk, USA, Professor (em.) of International law and organization, Princeton University

Bruce Kent, United Kingdom, President MAW, Movement for Abolition of War, ex President IPB

Dennis Kucinich, USA, Member of Congress, campaigns for US President

Mairead Maguire, Northern Ireland, Nobel laureate (1976)

Norman Solomon, USA, Journalist, anti-war activist

Davis Swanson, USA, Director, World Beyond War

Scandinavian Advisory Board

Nils Christie, Norway, professor, University of Oslo

Erik Dammann, Norway, founder “Future in our hands,” Oslo

Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Norway, professor, University of Oslo

Ståle Eskeland, Norway, professor of criminal law, University of Oslo

Erni Friholt, Sweden, Peace movement of Orust

Ola Friholt, Sweden, Peace movement of Orust

Lars-Gunnar Liljestrand, Sweden, Chair of the Association of FiB lawyers

Torild Skard, Norway, Ex President of Parliament, Second chamber (Lagtinget)

Sören Sommelius, Sweden, author and culture journalist

Maj-Britt Theorin, Sweden, ex President, International Peace Bureau

Gunnar Westberg, Sweden, Professor, ex Co-President IPPNW (Nobel peace prize 1985)

Jan Öberg, TFF, Sweden, Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research.