KUALA LUMPUR: Not even in his dreams, did Datuk Dr Ronald McCoy think that one day he would have a share in the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.
It all started in 2005, after the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review failed to reach a consensus, partly due to non-nuclear states, who felt that the nuclear powers were unable to meet their obligations to disarm.
"So, I emailed my friends in the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) about the campaign.
"All of them were very keen with the idea," he said when contacted by the New Straits Times today.
This was how the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons or ICAN came to be, said the former co-president of the IPPNW.
Last Friday, a decade after ICAN was launched, the campaign became the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
McCoy said he got the idea for the campaign from International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which later led to the Ottawa Landmine Treaty in 1997.
"Many non-nuclear states began to realise that nuclear weapons also have a humanitarian impact.
"So we convinced other countries that the only way to avoid the humanitarian catastrophe is by eliminating nuclear weapons.
"And the only way we can protect the world from a nuclear war is by getting rid of nuclear weapons."
ICAN kicked-off in Melbourne, Australia and was officially launched in 2007 in Vienna, Austria.
McCoy said to date, ICAN has participation from 468 non-governmental organisations, spread out in about 100 countries.
In its official website www.nobelprize.org, the committee awarded ICAN “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”
McCoy said it is such an honour to have played a key role in the materialising the campaign.
“Many people congratulated me on the matter, because the idea was proposed by me.
“But, this award is for the whole organisation (IPPNW) because we worked so hard for ICAN.”
On July 7, when the United Nations adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, ICAN was the force behind it.
“We cannot help but to feel proud about it,” he said.
More than 50 countries have since signed the treaty, including Malaysia.
The prize presentation ceremony for the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize will be held in Oslo, Norway on Dec 10.