Category: Nobel Peace Prize

Does the Situation in Iran Call for a Second Nobel Peace Prize?

Since the last time an Iranian woman was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the situation in Iran has only got worse. This does not mean that the previous award was a failure. Friday’s Nobel Peace Prize announcement of the winner for 2023 was an astonishing occurrence. Not because this year’s Nobel Peace Prize was unexpected… Read more »

Civil Society Faces an Uphill Struggle to Defend Democracy

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties, and the Russian human rights organization Memorial for their promotion of “the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.” This year’s prize constitutes an important and timely recognition… Read more »

No Escape for Putin from His Lonely and Tight Corner

On October 7, celebrations in Russia for President Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday were rather muted and distinctly half-hearted. For the big day, Putin opted to stage an informal gathering of six leaders from post-Soviet states — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan — in St. Petersburg. The formal meeting of the barely functional Commonwealth of… Read more »

Nobel Peace Prize Honors Courage and Dignity

The Norwegian Nobel Committee had to make an exceedingly difficult decision this year. At a time of war raging in Europe, was the proposition of a peace prize even relevant? Ukraine is certainly fighting a just war and deserves every measure of support that the global West can muster, but it is still a party… Read more »

What Difference the Nobel Peace Price Makes – or Doesn’t

The decision of the Norwegian Nobel committee to award the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to Dmitry Muratov (together with courageous Philippine journalist Maria Ressa) announced last Friday astonished, angered or elated everybody in Russia who has even a slight interest in politics or minimal exposure to media. Muratov himself was astounded (and even discarded the… Read more »

The World Food Program Won the Nobel Peace Prize. Does Food Aid Boost Peace?

The Norwegian Nobel Committee named this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, recognizing the World Food Program (WFP) for “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”

A Path to Peace and Stability Through Food Aid

This piece was originally posted on the PRIO blog in 2018. We’re reposting it now in 2020 on the occasion of the World Food Programme winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Constant war drove Fazle, his wife and four children away from their home and farm in the Khyber region of Pakistan eight years ago. They… Read more »

A Nobel for the WFP: A Non-Political Peace Prize for Humanitarian Multilateralism?

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the World Food Program for its “efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict”. The announcement emphasizes the… Read more »

Boris Nemtsov Still Marches with the Russian Opposition

PRIO Director Henrik Urdal included Russian NGOs standing against the rise of autocracy, and personally Alexei Navalny, in his short-list of candidates for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. Last week, Russian opposition remembered Boris Nemtsov, murdered five years ago, by a march in downtown Moscow, which gathered some 25.000 people. This article reflects on the… Read more »