Adolfo Esquivel

Nobel Peace Prize winner and dialogue partner with Daisaku Ikeda

Adolfo Perez Esquivel is the winner of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to the violent, repressive dictatorship ruling at that time in Argentina. A Roman Catholic, Perez has maintained a commitment to nonviolence throughout all phases of his career fighting for safety and justice for common people, in Argentina and everywhere. In 1974, he co-founded the NGO Servicio Paz y Justicia (“Service, Peace and Justice Foundation”, or SERPAJ). Today, he is is a permanent lecturer at the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Social Sciences, where he directs the seminar “Culture for Peace and Human Rights.” His main association with the Ikeda Center has been as a recipient of the Global Citizen Award in 1997. However, he also is a dialogue partner of Daisaku Ikeda’s, publishing together The Power of Hope: Thoughts on Peace and Human Rights in the Third Millennium (I.B. Tauris, 2021). The two also issued a joint appeal to youth in 2018, calling for resilience and hope.