80 Years Since the War: Traveling the World to Build a Peaceful and Sustainable Global Community

This year marks 80 years since the end of World War II, and since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For other Asian countries, it is also the major historical milestone of 80 years since liberation from Japanese colonial rule and wars of aggression.

Peace Boat carried out a special project dedicated to these themes onboard the 120th Global Voyage between April to August this year, and together with the UN Pavilion at Expo2025 Osaka Kansai, co-hosted the onboard event “Time for Peace” on August 10. Through these initiatives, we called for the abolition of nuclear weapons, an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and urgent humanitarian assistance.

Peace Boat began our voyages in 1983 during the Cold War, with the vision of reflecting on past wars to create a peaceful future. Our journeys of international exchange began with visits to neighbouring Asian countries, and in the 1990s, shocked by the Gulf War and awakened to the global environmental crisis, we launched our round-the-world voyages.

Since 2000, Peace Boat has collaborated with the United Nations on campaigns for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and continued to provide opportunities through our voyages for experiential learning about today’s global challenges, including conflict and the climate crisis.

However, today we are witnessing repeated violations of international law and serious human rights abuses, such as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Meanwhile, national self-interest–driven politics are rising in countries around the world. Multilateral cooperation and international human rights norms are being increasingly disregarded. These trends threaten to overturn the rule of law steadily built by the international community and replace it with  “rule by force.” In this environment, global military expenditures are increasing, and various countries are engaged in an arms race. Many nuclear-armed states and their allies, including NATO members, are working to strengthen so-called nuclear deterrence, bringing the risk of nuclear war to a level higher than ever. In Japan, under the updated National Security Strategy and other defense guidelines adopted in 2022, large-scale military expansion is also underway. We must reverse this course.

Since 2008, Peace Boat has worked in cooperation with Nihon Hidankyo (the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations) to bring Hibakusha—atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki—on our voyages to share their testimonies around the world. We believe that conveying the voices of the Hibakusha helps the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons to be understood across borders, reinforcing the nuclear taboo. Further, an outreach edition of the Nobel Peace Center’s Nobel Peace Prize Exhibition honouring Nihon Hidankyo, “A Message to Humanity,” was installed onboard for the 120th Voyage and has now been seen by over 2000 people around the world. We will continue this work and further expand the number of states signing and ratifying the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The path we should now pursue is to build a new form of globalization centered on the universal values of peace and human rights, with sustainability also added as a new core value. Challenges such as the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, armed conflict and marine pollution, as well as issues related to gender equality and migrant rights, cannot be solved by any single country alone. At the foundation of this effort must be the basic principle of the United Nations, established 80 years ago: the settlement of disputes by peaceful means.

We believe that the divisions and xenophobia born of globalization rooted in conventional capitalism must be overcome by forging new, border-transcending connections grounded in human rights, peace, and sustainability. In that vision lies both our responsibility—and our hope—for the 21st century.