At least in the "Peace" category

Dec 4, 2009 15:05 GMT  ·  By

Since the Nobel Prizes first started being awarded, more than a century ago, they have constantly grown in popularity and fame, until they reached their current status, as the most prestigious scientific awards in the world. But, while for most categories the winners are always selected after rigorous criteria, such as their inventions or researches, and their impact on the world, when it comes to the Peace category things are not always that simple. In fact, the Nobel Prize for Peace has always been a subject for debate, and each year the discussions reignite over and over again, AlphaGalileo reports.

According to expert Rebecka Lettevall, who is an associate professor of the history of ideas at the Sodertorn University, in Sweden, the main seed of all arguments related to this award can be found in the way the candidates are nominated and selected. Having spent an important part of her career studying the Nobel Peace prize and its laureates, Lettevall is intimately acquainted with the decisions that saw many of the recipients get their Peace Prize. She adds that the thing that upsets people the most is the lack of definable criteria in selecting the most appropriate candidate and winner.

Alfred Nobel left the criteria himself, written inside his will. They state that the Peace Prize should be awarded to a person or organization “that has made the greatest or the best efforts to bring peoples together and to abolish or reduce standing armies and to establish and disseminate peace conferences.” Lettevall says that, “Which principle has been applied and how it is interpreted has varied over time.” Hence the questions that appear every year, as to why a certain person received the Prize, and not another. The appointment of US President Barack Obama as this year's winner was no exception.

Some of the most famous recipients include Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen bank that fought to combat poverty, and the IPCC and Al Gore, for their work on the environment. Former president Jimmy Carter also received the Prize for his work as a peace mediator. “It’s nothing new for the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize to be controversial,” the expert adds. “The Nobel Peace Prize has been criticized for being too cautious and conservative, but this year it’s rather radical,” she shares. Researching why a certain candidate was selected as the winner is also very complicate.

Documents such as meeting minutes, arguments for a candidate or the other, and who backed up who have been kept secret for more than 50 years. “This means that we can read the archives up to 1958. But the reasoning and interpretations from those times are clearly different from today’s,” Rebecka Lettevall concludes by saying.