Jody Williams

Jody Williams is a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Chair of the Nobel Women's Initiative (USA). She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which shared the Peace Prize with her that year. At that time, she became the 10th woman - and third American woman - in its almost 100-year history to receive the Prize. Since her protests of the Vietnam War, she has been a lifelong advocate of freedom, self-determination and human and civil rights. Since January 2006, Jody Williams has worked toward those ends through the Nobel Women's Initiative, which she chairs. Along with sister Nobel Laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi of Iran, she took the lead in establishing the Nobel Women’s Initiative. They were joined at that time by sister Nobel Laureates Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchu Tum and Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire. The Initiative uses the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize and the influence and access of the women Nobel Laureates themselves to support and amplify the efforts of women around the world working for sustainable peace with justice and equality.