Arms Control Person of the Year

The Arms Control Association just released a list of nominees for the first ever "Arms Control Person of the Year" to recognize some of the most significant figures and groups who have helped make the world a safer place this year.

Vote here to choose from the following candidates or make a nomination of your own.

The nominees are…

Jonas Gahr Støre, Foreign Minister of Norway for spearheading his government's initiative to negotiate a treaty banning cluster munitions after the failure of states to agree to such talks at the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in 2006.

Representatives Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) and David Hobson (R-Ohio) for leading the House of Representatives and Congress to zero out funding for the controversial Reliable Replacement Warhead program.

Prakash Karat, General Secretary of India's Communist Party and his left parties allies for slowing progress on the implementation of the U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation deal.

Former Secretaries of State George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, and former Sen. Sam Nunn for their catalytic January 2007 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal calling for renewed U.S. leadership on practical steps "toward a world free of nuclear weapons."

Christopher Hill, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, for negotiating and keeping on track the plan to implement the six-party agreement on the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Margaret Beckett, former U.K. Sec. of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, for her June 2007 speech calling for renewed action on key nuclear disarmament steps, including the CTBT, deeper nuclear reductions, and more, as a means to strengthen global nonproliferation efforts.

Jan Neoral, the mayor of the Czech village of Trokavec, whose residents voted 71 - 1 against deployment of a U.S. strategic missile defense radar in their town.

Phil Goff, New Zealand's Disarmament and Arms Control Minister, for his leadership on a nonbinding UN resolution calling on nuclear-armed states to lessen the alert level of their deployed weapons, which won the support of 124 countries despite U.S., British, and French opposition.

Lulzim Basha, Albanian Foreign Minister, for helping his country become the first to verifiably destroy its chemical weapons stockpile as part of its commitments under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The Scottish Parliament for their June 14 vote in opposition of the U.K. government's replacement of the existent Trident nuclear-armed submarine system.

Vote, and stay tuned - the winner will be announced next month.