The Nobel Peace Prize is an honor that is awarded to an individual or an organization who does impactful work towards bringing peace to the world.
This can be defined in many ways, but often involves the person or organization having worked to resolve or prevent conflict, promote human rights or democracy, support disarmament, aid refugees, fight hunger, or advance social justice, equality, or global cooperation.
Nominations are can only be done by a select group of people, such as national politicians, university professors, former laureates, and members of international courts or organizations, and nominations are due by January 31 each year.
The Nobel Committee then creates a shortlist of candidates from the initial list of nominees, which usually contains a few hundred names.
According to NobelPeacePrize.org, “the nomination process is an eight-month screening and decision-making process involving not only the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee and its Secretary but also a group of Norwegian and international advisers.”
To be sure that the Norwegian Nobel Committee rotates in new people regularly, the members are given a six-year term when they are appointed. The Norwegian parliament, called the Storting, appoints the members.
To avoid real-time controversy and debate over who was chosen or not chosen, the names of the other nominees who do not win, as well as who nominated them, are not allowed to be revealed until 50 years after each prize is awarded.
The prize was first established by the will of Alfred Nobel after his death in 1896. In his will, he left his fortune to be put into a fund that would be “annually awarded as prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”
He then detailed five of the six categories of Nobel Prizes that we have today: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. The sixth category, Economic Sciences, was added later on in Nobel’s memory, and was not established by him personally in his will. Each prize category has its own separate committee that handles the selection of winners as well as the distribution of the prizes.
The 2025 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize is set to be announced on Friday October 10 via a livestream on the Nobel Peace Prize website.
