Understanding the Award.

[Kind of Blue]

From The Nobel Peace Prize: From Peace Negotiations to Human Rights
by Francis Sejersted
Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Commitee, 1991-1999
Read the entire article at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/sejersted/index.html

1.Where the Peace Prize is concerned, the wording has been seen as opening up opportunities to engage in processes which have not yet reached a conclusion, but where there has been clear evidence of progress...

2.The Prize, in other words, is not only for past achievement, although that is the most important criterion. The committee also takes the possible positive effects of its choices into account. Among the reasons for adding this as a criterion is the obvious point that Nobel wanted the Prize to have political effects. Awarding a Peace Prize is, to put it bluntly, a political act – which is also the reason why the choices so often stir up controversy.

3.The mention in the will of the "abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the holding and promotion of peace congresses" reflects the period in which the will was written. The approach today is to see it as pointing to general disarmament and the dissemination of the concept of peace. The most important provision, however, is contained in the term "fraternity between nations." This general and open provision has provided a basis for the wide definition of peace-related work which the committee has applied right from the start.

4.The selection of individual prize-winners is never easy, but the focus on particular cases does make it possible to take into consideration the whole range of relevant factors, whether of a universalist or culturally related kind, and to strike a balance. The Laureate will symbolise good will and purity of heart all over the world, but the choice must also win sympathy in his or her own cultural environment. It is the committee's experience that it is possible to find worthy candidates who represent universal ideals of human rights in the most varied cultures.

5.Laureates must be more than skilled diplomats; it is important for them also to be able to stand out as symbols of good will. Only then can the Peace Prize contribute, in the words of Laureate Elie Wiesel, "to turning history into a moral endeavour."

6.Why has the Nobel Peace Prize acquired such enormous prestige? There are many peace prizes, some of them worth large amounts of money. But none of them have so far matched the Nobel Prize in prestige. This is partly fortuitous, and also a question of the age of the Prize. But it must also be attributed to the assumption underlying what we have been discussing, which is that the broad range of criteria always includes what I have called a strong moral element. It appears to be precisely this type of prize which has the potential to attract people's attention. There also appears to be a self-reinforcing element here: widespread attention attracts still more attention. Many people, in short, feel a need for symbols that can appeal to their better instincts, or (Kant again) help them to overcome the evil principle in themselves. The choices of Peace Prize Laureates appear to have succeeded in some measure in creating symbols of this kind, whether the Laureate is a humanitarian aid worker like Mother Teresa or Fridtjof Nansen, an antimilitarist like Carl von Ossietzky, a statesman like Woodrow Wilson or Willy Brandt, or a campaigner for human rights like Nelson Mandela or Carlos Belo. I think this goes a long way towards explaining the prestige of the Prize. When all is said and done, the most important effect of the Nobel Peace Prize may be that it has succeeded in creating clear symbols which appeal to our best instincts – symbols of good will.