A U.S. scholar engaged in spreading the spirit of the Japanese Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 will propose Thursday in New York that the article and the Japanese people be awarded a special Nobel Peace Prize, his supporters in Japan said.

Charles Overby, 75, founder of the Article 9 Society and professor emeritus of engineering at Ohio University, will make the proposal at an academic forum on peace and history in the Big Apple, the supporters said.

Overby will recommend that the society propose to the Nobel Peace Prize committee that Japanese citizens and Article 9 be awarded a "special kind of Nobel Peace Prize."

"This award would be to 'the people' for their over half-century struggle to keep Article 9 alive, and to Article 9 for being the unquestionable 'leash' on Japan so that it has not, since the end of World War II, joined the other nations of the world in the 'hallowed' practice of military killing and destruction," a draft of the speech to be given by Overby says.

The draft also says the award will help Japanese people use the article for "persuading the world's nations to permit and actively encourage . . . (Japan) to become an experimental nation for demonstrating ways and means for preventing wars and violence, and for using nonviolent, nonmilitary . . . means for resolving conflict."

Overby, who flew U.S. bombers during the Korean War, learned about Article 9 when he visited Japan in 1981 as a visiting professor at Chubu University in Aichi Prefecture.

He established the Article 9 Society in the United States in March 1991, following the Persian Gulf War. Several support organizations for the society have been set up in Japan.

Article 9 of the Constitution prohibits Japan from waging war.