Why does the Nobel Peace Prize often stir controversy?

With the winner from 343 candidates set to be introduced on Friday, a take a look at an award gained by folks as assorted as Obama, Gorbachev and Kissinger.

PLO chief Yasser Arafat, left, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, centre, and Israeli Overseas Minister Shimon Peres pose with their medals and diplomas, after receiving the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo's Metropolis Corridor [File: AP Photo]

The Nobel Peace Prize is without doubt one of the six awards given every year to the world’s most elite human rights leaders, economists, scientists and writers at first of October. The winners of the Nobel Prizes in medication, physics and chemistry have already been introduced.

This 12 months, there are 343 candidates – 251 people and 92 organisations – for the Nobel Peace Prize, and the winner might be introduced on Friday.

Nevertheless, one of the crucial awaited awards has typically led to controversies. The prize committee has been accused of being politically motivated, subjective and generally basing the award on aspiration somewhat than achievements.

How are the winners chosen?

• The Norwegian Nobel Committee – composed of 5 members appointed by the Norwegian parliament – is liable for deciding on the Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
• To be eligible for the award, an individual must be nominated by certified people, which incorporates members of nationwide governments or present heads of states, earlier winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, college professors and extra. Self-nominations should not thought-about.
• The Nobel Basis prohibits disclosing data on the nominations and deliberation course of for the subsequent 50 years after successful.
• The winners embody the likes of Barack Obama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Malala Yousafzai and Nelson Mandela.
• Journalists Maria Ressa from the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov from Russia gained the prize in 2021.
• Every winner will get almost $900,000, which is handed out with a diploma and a gold medal on December 10 – the date of Alfred Nobel’s dying in 1896.

(Al Jazeera)

Why some previous laureates had been controversial

• The Nobel Peace Prize was first introduced in 1901 and is at present thought-about one of the crucial prestigious – and generally controversial – awards.
• The choice course of has at occasions been marred by accusations of sexism, racism and the award committee being Eurocentric. 
• Thus far, 109 people have gained the peace award however solely 18 had been ladies, together with Mom Teresa in 1979 and Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991.
• The award has been criticised for its untimely or defective understanding of peace or for being politically motivated. For instance, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gained the prize in 2019 for ending the 20-year battle between Eritrea and Ethiopia by establishing a peace settlement. Nevertheless, a battle began in northern Ethiopia in November 2020, and Abiy has been criticised for human rights violations and conflict crimes dedicated by his forces within the Tigray area.

• Equally, Obama’s award of 2009 confronted a wave of criticism. He obtained the prize within the first 12 months of his presidency, which some thought-about too early. But it surely raised questions concerning the choice because of the Obama administration’s involvement in wars in Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Yemen.
• Different controversial winners embody an award given in 1994 to Palestinian chief Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Overseas Minister Shimon Peres for his or her work on the Oslo Peace Accords.
• Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger obtained the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his negotiations to finish the Vietnam Warfare. However Kissinger was additionally accused of a number of conflict crimes through the Chilly Warfare, together with bombings in Cambodia in 1969 and 1970.

Who was Nobel and why the peace prize?

• Alfred Nobel was a rich Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite. He has additionally been subjected to controversy attributable to his gained wealth from an invention utilized in conflicts and wars.
• On November 27, 1895, Nobel signed his final will and testomony that the biggest share of his fortune would go to a collection of prizes.
• In Nobel’s will, one half was devoted to “the one that shall have completed probably the most or the perfect work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or discount of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.
• 5 years after his dying, the primary awards had been handed out in 1901, and since then 101 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded to 109 people and 28 organisations.
• The Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross has been awarded the prize thrice (in 1917, 1944 and 1963), adopted by the Workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees two occasions (in 1954 and 1981).