Jody Williams, the 1997 co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, was born in Vermont in 1950. She learned to abhorinjustice at an early age from fellow schoolchildren, who unfairly picked on her disabled brother. Like many teenagers of her generation, she also developed an aversion to the war then being waged in Vietnam.

After attending the University of Vermont in Burlington, Williams moved to Brattleboro, Vermont, where she earned a master’s degree in teaching Spanish and ESL (English as a Second Language) from the School for International Training in 1976. She then taught ESL in Mexico for two years. It was her first exposure to extreme poverty.

From Mexico, she moved to Washington, D.C. There, she worked two jobs and attended the School of Advanced International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University, which led to a master’s degree in international relations in 1984.

Enticed by a leaflet she had received on the street one day, Williams attended a meeting about human rights violations taking place in El Salvador. With her recent experiences in Mexico, she developed an immediate and passionate interest in U.S. policy toward Central America.

Transforming that passion into a career, she served from 1984 to 1986 as coordinator of the Nicaragua-Honduras Education Project, leading fact-finding delegations to the region. From 1986 to 1992, she also developed and directed humanitarian relief pro jects as the deputy director of the Los Angeles-based Medical Aid for El Salvador.

With the end of the Cold War, Williams began to consider another advocacy role. In a happy coincidence, Bobby Muller, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, called Williams in late 1991 to see if she’d be interested in coordinati ng a new initiative to ban landmines worldwide. After years of building public awareness about U.S. policy toward Central America, Williams leapt at the opportunity to mobilize foreign governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in a common and worthwhile cause.

In October 1992, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) was formally launched by the VVAF, Handicap International, Human Rights Watch, medico international, Mines Advisory Group, and Physicians for Human Rights. These six groups, which beca me the original steering committee of the ICBL, issued a "Joint Call to Ban Antipersonnel Landmines" that included putting an end to the use, production, trade, and stockpiling of antipersonnel landmines. They also urged governments to increase resources for humanitarian mine clearance and for victim assistance.

As the campaign’s chief strategist, Williams wrote and spoke extensively on the landmine problem and the need for a total ban. Her audiences included the United Nations, the European Parliament, and the Organization of African Unity.

Together with Shawn Roberts, she co-authored After the Guns Fall Silent: The Enduring Legacy of Landmines (VVAF, 1995). Their book drew upon two years of field research in four mine-affected countries to detail the socio-economic consequences of landmine contamination. Besides the exorbitant medical costs of treating landmine victims, the long-term consequences to a community include reduced employment opportunities and lost access to land for agriculture, grazing, and trading.

"People have this idea that land-mined fields are set off with barbed wire like they are in World War II movies, but that’s not how it is," Williams told a reporter for Vogue magazine. "They put them where people go. They put them next to watering holes, along the banks of the river, in the fields. It is not realistic for people to stay out of those areas."

Working without an office or staff, and relying primarily on fax machines and electronic mail to disseminate information, Williams ultimately convinced more than 1,000 NGOs from 60-plus countries to support the campaign. The ICBL gained tremendous visi bility when Diana, the Princess of Wales, became a vocal landmine critic and visited landmine victims in Angola and Bosnia–two of the most heavily mined countries in the world–in the months before her death.

In October 1996 the Canadian government hosted a meeting of pro-ban governments. The participants had two goals: to formally signal their intention to ban landmines and to develop an "Agenda for Action," a step-by-step strategy for moving the ICBL forward. At the conclusion of that meeting, Lloyd Axworthy, the Canadian foreign minister, challenged the participants to return to Canada in one year to sign an international treaty banning landmines.

They rose to the challenge. In early 1997 Austria drafted a treaty and in September of that year, 89 countries convened in Oslo, Norway, to negotiate the treaty’s final language. A meeting was scheduled for December 4, 1997, at which the treaty wo uld be signed by pro-ban governments in Ottawa, Canada.

In a little more than five years, Jody Williams and the ICBL had achieved their goal of raising public awareness about landmines and effecting a landmine ban. In recognition for their efforts, the Norwegian Nobel Committee named Williams and the ICBL a s co-recipients of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

In conferring the award to Williams and the ICBL, Francis Sejersted, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said, "There are those among us who are unswerving in their faith that things can be done to make our world a better, safer, and more h umane place and who also, even when the tasks appear overwhelming, have the courage to tackle them. ... You have not only dared to tackle your task, but also proved that the impossible is possible. You have helped to rouse public opinion all over the worl d against the use of an arms technology that strikes quite randomly at the most innocent and most defenseless."

To date, more than 120 countries have ratified the landmine ban treaty. For her role in helping to make this happen, Williams has also received the 1998 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the Fiat Lux Award f rom Clark University. She has been named a 1997 "Woman of the Year" by Ms., Glamour, and Vanity Fair magazines, and has received honorary doctorate degrees from Briar Cliff College, Marlboro College, the University of Vermont, and Williams College.

While she no longer works for the VVAF, Williams continues to assist the ICBL as its international ambassador.