(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
What do Mother Teresa, Yassir Arafat and the EU have in common? Apart from the fact that they are famous names, they are strange bedfellow friends. Mother Teresa was a Catholic nun who worked among the poorest in the world. Yasir Arafat was the leader of the PLO and an important part of the Oslo agreement. The EU is a union with its own parliament and legislation.
And all three have been considered worthy of receiving one of the world's most prestigious awards – the Nobel Peace Prize. Everyone who receives the Peace Prize has one important common denominator: They fell in love with the five members of the Nobel Committee. What kind of work they have done, and what issues they represent, there is a wide range.
Peace work no longer takes place only in the highest marble palaces with formal frameworks and negotiations. Research has shown that peace can be strengthened and violent conflict prevented by working for all types of equality, building infrastructure locally and internationally and protecting human rights in vulnerable areas.
Diluted concept of peace?
Every year, the awarding of the Peace Prize is something that is talked about all over the world. The Nobel Committee reaps both praise and rice when the committee chair announces the winner in early October. The comments often come from many quarters – heads of state, academics and peace researchers, among others – and are mostly about the timeliness of the award and the dignity of the winner.
But the prize's foremost critic, the lawyer and peace activist Fredrik Heffermehl, sees a much bigger problem than whether some winners have done enough – namely what they have done. In his book Back of medal (2020) he presents an argument that the Nobel Committee has diluted the concept of peace by interpreting the Nobel will too broadly and openly.
Everyone who receives the Peace Prize has one important common denominator: they fell in love with the five members of the Nobel Committee.
Heffermehl points out that a will must be interpreted in line with the testator's will. Since Nobel died at the end of the 1800th century, the will must be interpreted according to the conditions under which Nobel lived, and his very specific understanding of the peace work his award was intended to honor. In Nobel's time, peace conferences and the emergence of international institutions to prevent war and disarmament policies were particularly relevant. With this as a basis, Heffermehl points out that only 22 percent of the peace prizes awarded are in line with what he believes is the correct interpretation of the will.
In the other corner is Geir Lundestad, former secretary of the Nobel Committee. In his book Secretary of Peace (2015) he defends the committee's choice to interpret the will broadly by talking about "many paths to peace". Lundestad points out that the context for the award naturally changes together with the worldview, and that people understand that different traditions are honored through the award due to these changes. As it says in Secretary of Peace"Giving the Peace Prize more or less exclusively to those who work within the peace tradition in the narrowest sense is not only a narrow way of interpreting Alfred Nobel's will, but it will soon lead to the Peace Prize losing its unique role."
Lundestad points out here that it is in the committee's self-interest to stick to a broad interpretation of the award to ensure that the award retains its weight and prestige.
Although Heffermehl and Lundestad are on opposite sides of the Nobel debate, they agree on at least one thing: Gandhi should have been awarded the Peace Prize. In 1948, the year Gandhi was assassinated, the prize was not awarded because there was no "living worthy candidate". Just about everyone agrees that nonviolence is the most important indicator of peace work. This is an example of how generous this Nobel Prize has its clear blind spots.
The various Nobel Prize recipients
Prevention, conflict management and reconciliation are the three main components of peace work – as peace research sees the world. Given this perspective, it is natural to group the Peace Prize awards throughout history into some subcategories of the three.
With Gandhi in mind, it is clear that the clearest category for the Peace Prize is non-violence as a political method. The fact that one unarmed peace activist from India managed to stretch the legs of the world's strongest empire is probably one of the biggest shocks in world history – at least for the British Empire. This proved the political power of non-violence for all time to come. Since then, non-violence as a political method has become more and more widespread, and we find the method in both prevention and conflict management. The most famous who has won the Peace Prize for his political nonviolence is Martin Luther King jr., In 1964. King refers to Gandhi when he talks about the choice of method for the struggle for equality he fought, even though his Christian values were different from Gandhi's Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
Disarmament prices appear to be about one in five peace prices.
Like prices for advocates of non-violence, we find prices for peace processes and peace agreements both as prevention and conflict management. One of the prizes that has caused a great deal of debate was the one awarded in 1994 to Yassir Arafat, Yitzak Rabin and Shimon Peres for their cooperation in the Oslo process. Similarly, Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowitz have been nominated this year for their work in establishing peace agreements between Israel and neighboring countries.
Such peace processes and peace agreements support a strong international legal order, which in turn prevents war. The promotion of such an international legal order, which in turn falls under prevention, was honored in 1929 with the Nobel Peace Prize. Then the award went to Frank Billings Kellogg for his work on the Briand-Kellogg Pact – an attempt to ban war completely. His French counterpart, Aristide Briand, had received the award in 1926 for similar work for Germany.
With a strong international legal order, it also becomes easier to bet on one peaceful foreign policy, which is what Willy Brandt won his Nobel Peace Prize for in 1971. Brandts Ostpolitik was a controversial project to improve relations between Western and Eastern Europe. Among this year's nominations, this baton is passed on by the Article 9 Association, for their work to retain the "pacifist clause" in Japan's constitution. This section prohibits the country from going to war.
Together with the preventive categories mentioned above, we also find a separate peace prize category for reconciliation work. Among the Reconciliation Awards, the Desmond Tutu Peace Prize in 1984 is a good example. He was honored for his struggle to end the apartheid regime in South Africa with non-violence, but also as a unifying symbol of freedom fighters across the continent. After the fall of the apartheid regime, it was therefore Tutu who was given the task of leading South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the work to heal the deep wounds of the whole country.
Disarmament prices and weapons control
There are several groups of peace prizes that fit into the three basic forms of peace work, and they are by no means insignificant. An example is disarmament prices, which seems to make up one in five peace prizes. Here, it is especially nuclear disarmament that is at the center.
Many have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their fight against nuclear weapons. For example, Linus Pauling in 1962, Eisaku Sato and Sean McBride in 1974, and Doctors Against Nuclear Weapons in 1985 and the international campaign to ban nuclear weapons in 2017. Historically, the award to the Pugwash Committee in 1995 is probably the strongest of these, as it worked for both nuclear disarmament and information about nuclear weapons, and was an important diplomatic channel through the Cold War. In 2021, Kenji Urata and his work with the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms are among the nominees in this category.
Furthermore, peace prizes have been awarded repeatedly for arms control. For example, in 1997 the prize was awarded to the international campaign to ban landmines, and their leader Jody Williams. They received the award for their work to establish a ban, and to clean up laid landmines after the war. When the campaign to ban killing robots in 2021 is nominated for the Peace Prize, a clear pattern is seen for this group of peace prizes.
Cross-border co-operation, religious divides and cultural differences are a common method in peace work. Such people-to-people collaboration is also important in all stages of non-violent conflict management and was, for example, honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. At that time, the International Women's League for Peace and Freedom was the prize winner. Among this year's nominations, we find Kirkenes Puckers, and their cooperation across the border with Russia, as an example of a candidacy for this group of peace prizes.
Even less traditional topics in peace work may be relevant for the Nobel Peace Prize. Among the more "alternative" prizes should be mentioned those awarded for humanitarian work, protection of free speech and climate / environment. The very first Peace Prize was among these and went to Henri Dunant for the establishment of the Red Cross. Also among this year's nominations are several organizations working to protect free speech – such as the Hong Kong Free Press and Reporters Without Borders – as well as several dissidents and human rights defenders, who are nominated for reasons other than actual contributions to non-violent conflict management.
Blind zone: peace academy
Who is nominated for the Peace Prize is only up to those who nominate, and the reason for such nominations can thus be so many. This year, the committee has received 329 nominations, with a wide range, from Black Lives Matter to the World Health Organization (WHO). Common features of these nominations are often that they are perceived as relevant in their time, and that they represent the most popular peace ideas of their time.
When Johan Galtung founded the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959, this was the start of a new branch in academia. Not to replace political science, but to contribute to existing knowledge by taking a normative perspective: Peace research was founded not only to study peace, but also to contribute to peace.
Peace research was founded not only to study peace, but also to contribute to peace.
In 2021, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is among the nominees for the award. In his nomination text, Arne Nævra writes that SIPRI's research results are essential for peace negotiations and security. Such data is politically crucial and serves as a foundation in the world's ever-changing political landscape.
But SIPRI is nothing new. They have been producing research and statistics since their founding in 1966. Their peace academy project has been going on for almost 60 years – without leading to any peace prize-giving. The Peace Academy bases policy – within both prevention, conflict management and reconciliation work after conflicts.
In this context, perhaps the Nobel Prize's biggest blind spot is precisely those that explain contemporary war and peace and analyze the most effective peace ideas that are actually in use in the world. No representatives of this arena have ever been awarded the Peace Prize.
The discussion about which peace traditions this award should honor is crucial for the entire future of the award. It is also central to the peace work that will be strengthened in future awards. The conversation about what the award should premiere is essential for the award to retain its relevance, and this discussion must be conducted openly and inclusively. Involving the peace academy in this will be crucial for the quality of the conversation.
