Nobel Peace Prize
From dKosopedia
The Nobel Peace Prize (where Nobel is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable) is one of five Nobel Prizes bequested by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. While the Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Literature Prizes are awarded annually in Stockholm, the Peace Prize is awarded in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, whose members are chosen by the Norwegian Parliament, is appointed to select the laureate for the Peace Prize, and the prize is awarded by its chairman, Dr. Ole Danbolt Mjøs. At the time of Alfred Nobel's death Sweden and Norway were in a personal union in which the Swedish parliament was solely responsible for foreign policy (in addition to Swedish domestic policy), and the Norwegian Parliament was responsible only for Norwegian domestic policy. Alfred Nobel therefore stipulated that the Peace Prize be awarded by Norway rather than Sweden in order to prevent the manipulation of the selection process by foreign powers.
According to the will of Alfred Nobel the prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, the Nobel Peace Prize may be awarded to persons or organizations that are in the process of resolving an issue, rather than upon the resolution of the issue. In this way, the Nobel Peace Prize differs from all the other Nobel prizes. Since the prize can be given to individuals involved in ongoing peace processes, some of the awards now appear, with hindsight, questionable, particularly when those processes failed to bear lasting fruit. For example, the awards given to Theodore Roosevelt, Le Duc Tho, and Henry Kissinger were particularly controversial and criticized; the latter prompted two dissenting committee members to resign [1]. The Nobel Committee has also received criticism from right-wing groups who see their decisions as guided by an apparent left-wing bias. They specially condemn the prize being given to people like Yasser Arafat, whom they view as a supporter of terrorism.
Laureates
List of Nobel Prize laureates in Peace from 1901 to the present day.
1900s - 1910s - 1920s - 1930s - 1940s - 1950s - 1960s - 1970s - 1980s - 1990s - 2000s
1900s
1910s
Year | Individual or Organization | Notes |
---|---|---|
1910 | Bureau International Permanent de la Paix (Permanent International Peace Bureau), Berne. | |
1911 | Tobias Michael Carel Asser (Netherlands) | initiator of the International Conferences of Private Law in The Hague. |
Alfred Hermann Fried (Austria) | founder of Die Waffen Nieder. | |
1912 | Elihu Root (USA) | for initiating various arbitration agreements. |
1913 | Henri la Fontaine (Belgium) | president of the Permanent International Peace Bureau. |
1914 | not awarded | World War 1 |
1915 | not awarded | World War 1 |
1916 | not awarded | World War 1 |
1917 | International Red Cross, Geneva. | |
1918 | Not awarded | |
1919 | Woodrow Wilson (USA) | president of the United States, for founding the League of Nations. |
1920s
Year | Individual or Organization | Notes |
---|---|---|
1920 | Léon Victor Auguste Bourgeois | president of the Council of the League of Nations. |
1921 | Hjalmar Branting (Sweden) | prime minister, Swedish delegate to the Council of the League of Nations. |
Christian Lous Lange (Norway) | secretary-general of the Inter-Parliamentary Union | |
1922 | Fridtjof Nansen (Norway) | Norwegian delegate to the League of Nations, originator of the Nansen passports for refugees. |
1923 | Not awarded | |
1924 | ||
1925 | Sir Austen Chamberlain (UK) for the Locarno Treaty. | |
Charles Gates Dawes (USA) | chairman of the Allied Reparation Commission and originator of the Dawes Plan. | |
1926 | Aristide Briand (France) for the Locarno Treaties. | |
Gustav Stresemann (Germany) | for the Locarno Treaties. | |
1927 | Ferdinand Buisson (France) | founder and president of the League for Human Rights. |
Ludwig Quidde (Germany) | delegate to numerous peace conferences. | |
1928 | Not awarded | |
1929 | Frank B. Kellogg (USA) | for the Briand-Kellogg Pact. |
1930s
Year | Individual or Organization | Notes |
---|---|---|
1930 | Archbishop Lars Olof Nathan (Jonathan) Söderblom (Sweden) | leader of the ecumenical movement. |
1931 | Jane Addams (USA) | international president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom |
Nicholas Murray Butler (USA) | for promoting the Briand-Kellogg Pact. | |
1932 | Not awarded | |
1933 | Sir Norman Angell (Ralph Lane) (UK) | writer, member of the Executive Committee of the League of Nations and the National Peace Council. |
1934 | Arthur Henderson (UK) | chairman of the League of Nations Disarmament Conference |
1935 | Carl von Ossietzky (Germany) | pacifist journalist. |
1936 | Carlos Saavedra Lamas (Argentina) | president of the League of Nations and mediator in a conflict between Paraguay and Bolivia. |
1937 | The Viscount Cecil of Chelwood | founder and president of the International Peace Campaign. |
1938 | Nansen International Office For Refugees, Geneva. | |
1939 | Not awarded |
1940s
Year | Individual or Organization | Notes |
---|---|---|
1940 | Not awarded | World War 2 |
1941 | Not awarded | World War 2 |
1942 | Not awarded | World War 2 |
1943 | Not awarded | World War 2 |
1944 | International Committee of the Red Cross (awarded retroactively in 1945). | |
1945 | Cordell Hull (USA) | for co-initiating the United Nations. |
1946 | Emily Greene Balch (USA) | honorary international president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom |
John R. Mott (USA) | chairman of the International Missionary Council and president of the World Alliance of Young Men's Christian Associations | |
1947 | The Friends Service Council (UK) and The American Friends Service Committee (USA) | on behalf of the Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers. |
1948 | Not awarded | Apparently it would have been awarded to Mahatma Gandhi had he not been dead. See the Nobel e-museum article. [2] |
1949 | The Lord Boyd-Orr (UK) | director General Food and Agricultural Organization, president National Peace Council, president World Union of Peace Organizations. |
1950s
Year | Individual or Organization | Notes |
---|---|---|
1950 | Ralph Bunche | for mediating in Palestine (1948). |
1951 | Léon Jouhaux (France) | president of the International Committee of the European Council, vice president of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, vice president of the World Federation of Trade Unions, member of the ILO Council, delegate to the UN. |
1952 | Albert Schweitzer (France) | for founding the Lambarene Hospital in Gabon. |
1953 | American Secretary of State George Catlett Marshall | for the Marshall Plan. |
1954 | The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. | |
1955 | Not awarded | Korean War |
1956 | Not awarded | Korean War |
1957 | Lester Bowles Pearson (Canada) | president of the 7th session of the United Nations General Assembly for introducing peacekeeping forces to resolve the Suez Crisis. |
1958 | Georges Pire (Belgium) | leader of L'Europe du Coeur au Service du Monde, a relief organization for refugees. |
1959 | Philip Noel-Baker (UK) | for his lifelong ardent work for international peace and co-operation. |
1960s
Year | Individual or Organization | Notes |
---|---|---|
1960 | Albert Lutuli (South Africa) | president of the ANC (African National Congress). |
1961 | Dag Hammarskjöld (Sweden) | secretary-general of the UN (awarded posthumously). |
1962 | Linus Carl Pauling (USA) | for his campaign against nuclear weapons testing. |
1963 | International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva. | |
League of Red Cross Societies, Geneva. | ||
1964 | Martin Luther King, Jr. (USA) | campaigner for civil rights. |
1965 | United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF) | |
1966 | Not awarded | |
1967 | ||
1968 | René Cassin (France) | president of the European Court of Human Rights. |
1969 | International Labour Organization (I.L.O.), Geneva. |
1970s
Year | Individual or Organization | Notes |
---|---|---|
1970 | Norman Borlaug (USA) | for research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. |
1971 | Chancellor Willy Brandt (Germany) | for West Germany's Ostpolitik, embodying a new attitude towards Eastern Europe and East Germany. |
1972 | Not awarded | |
1973 | Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (USA) and Foreign Minister Le Duc Tho (Vietnam, declined) | for the Vietnam peace accord. |
1974 | Seán MacBride (Ireland) | president of the International Peace Bureau and the Commission of Namibia of the United Nations. |
Eisaku Sato (佐藤榮作) (Japan) | prime minister. | |
1975 | Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (USSR) | for his campaigning for human rights. |
1976 | Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan | founders of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement (later renamed Community of Peace People). |
1977 | Amnesty International, London | for its campaign against torture. |
1978 | President Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat (Egypt) and Prime Minister Menachem Begin (Israel) | for negotiating peace between Egypt and Israel. |
1979 | Mother Teresa | poverty awareness campaigner (India) |
1980s
Year | Individual or Organization | Notes |
---|---|---|
1980 | Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Argentina) | human rights |
1981 | The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. | |
1982 | Alva Myrdal (Sweden) and Alfonso García Robles (Mexico) | delegates to the United Nations General Assembly on Disarmament. |
1983 | Lech Wałęsa (Poland) | founder of Solidarność and campaigner for human rights. Served as the first president of Poland after the fall of Communism |
1984 | Bishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu (South Africa) | for his work against apartheid. |
1985 | International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Boston. | |
1986 | Elie Wiesel (USA) | author, Holocaust survivor |
1987 | President Óscar Arias Sánchez (Costa Rica) | for initiating peace negotiations in Central America. |
1988 | The United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces, New York. | |
1989 | Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. |
1990s
Year | Individual or Organization | Notes |
---|---|---|
1990 | President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (USSR) | "for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community" |
1991 | Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar) | "for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights" |
1992 | Author Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala) | "in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples" |
1993 | President Nelson Mandela (South Africa) and Former President Frederik Willem de Klerk (South Africa) | "for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa" |
1994 | PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat (Palestine), Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (Israel) and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Israel) | "for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East" |
1995 | Józef Rotblat (Poland/UK) and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs | "for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms" |
1996 | Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo (East Timor) and José Ramos Horta (East Timor) | "for their work towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor" |
1997 | International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Jody Williams | "for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines" |
1998 | John Hume (UK) and David Trimble (UK) | "for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland" |
1999 | Médecins Sans Frontières, Brussels. | "in recognition of the organization's pioneering humanitarian work on several continents" |
2000s
Year | Individual or Organization | Notes |
---|---|---|
2000 | President Kim Dae Jung (金大中) (South Korea) | "for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular" |
2001 | The United Nations and Secretary-General Kofi Annan (Ghana) | "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world" |
2002 | Jimmy Carter - former President of the United States | "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development" |
2003 | Shirin Ebadi (شیرین عبادی), (Iran) | "for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children." |
2004 | Wangari Maathai (Kenya) | "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace" |
2005 | Mohamed ElBaradei and the IAEA | "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way." |
2006 | Mahammad Yunus and Grameen Bank | "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below." |
2007 | Al Gore - former Vice President of the United States, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change | "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." |
See also
- International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
- Nobel Prize
- Nobel Prize in Physics (decided by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry (decided by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (decided by the Karolinska Institute)
- Nobel Prize for Literature (decided by the Swedish Academy)
- Nobel Peace Prize (decided by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Storting)