Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the Nobel Prizes founded by chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel in the final draft of his will. Like the other prizes in the Nobel family, the Nobel Peace Prize is designed to honor a particular contribution to global society. Whereas other prizes in the family honor contributions to chemistry, medicine, or the arts, the Nobel Peace Prize honors contributions to lasting peace and global disarmament.

A special Nobel committee based in Norway manages the prize. Five individuals, often former Norwegian politicians, choose the recipients of the award. The award has been given to numerous notable individuals, including Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, President Barak Obama, and Malala Yousafzai.

Background

Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born on October 21, 1833, in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the son of Immanuel and Caroline Nobel. Nobel studied engineering as a child, learning from his father and conducting his own research as well. While still a child, Nobel moved from Sweden to St. Petersburg, Russia. After arriving, Nobel began studying chemistry with private tutors. Soon, Nobel moved to France to continue his education. Further study of chemistry took the young inventor to the United States.

After working in the United States, Nobel moved back to Sweden and began experimenting with explosives. The inventor created a safer way to detonate nitroglycerin, which was much more powerful than other more commonly utilized explosive compounds. He built a factory to sell these detonators and founded a new business selling explosives. Nobel used nitroglycerin to create dynamite, quickly making his business venture incredibly successful. He used those funds to continue researching new explosive compounds, eventually creating blasting gelatin and ballistite.

When Nobel's wealthy brother Ludvig passed away, some European papers mistakenly believed that Nobel had died. They published obituaries for Nobel while the explosives chemist was still alive. In response, Nobel decided to use the fortune he had built while selling explosives, many of which had been weaponized, to do give back to the world. In the last draft of Nobel's will, he ordered that the funds of his estate be used to establish prizes in five categories: chemistry, medicine, physics, literature, and peace.

Each prize was meant to honor a different type of contribution to society. Chemistry, medicine, and physics were each chosen to honor contributions to the scientific community. The prize for literature was chosen to honor contributions to the arts. Finally, the prize for peace was chosen to honor contributions to the political future of humanity. Many experts on Nobel's life believed that Bertha von Suttner, a prominent peace activist who was an employee and close friend of Nobel, influenced the unique award. Suttner would later be one of recipients of the coveted prize.

Overview

According to the Norwegian Nobel Institute's website, Nobel's will stated that the Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses." It specified that a committee of five people would choose the recipient of the award. The Norwegian Storting, the country's legislative body, chose the people on this committee. Over time, this group came to be known as the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The committee was set to reflect the relative influence levels of the political parties in the Storting. However, allowances are made for the multiple parties in the Storting because the Norwegian Nobel Committee contains only five seats.

It took several years for the legal framework surrounding the Nobel Prizes, including the Nobel Peace Prize, to be finalized. Although Nobel passed away in 1896, the first Nobel Prize was not awarded until 1901. The first committee included the Norwegian prime minister and the foreign minister. Over time, the public grew uneasy about the committee's composition. They criticized the placement of active politicians on the committee, arguing that those individuals could not truly vote in an impartial manner. In 1937, a restriction was created that stopped members of the current government, like the prime minister, from sitting on the committee. In 1978, additional restrictions were created to prevent active members of the Storting from serving on the committee.

Many of the prizes in the Nobel Prize family have been awarded to controversial individuals in various fields. The Peace Prize is often considered the most controversial of the prizes. Exactly who among the leaders of the world contributed the most to global peace and disarmament in the previous year is commonly considered a subjective opinion. For example, General George C. Marshall was given the award for the Marshall Plan, a plan for rebuilding Europe after World War II (1939–1945), in 1953. However, Marshall had also been commander of the US military during the war. In a similar situation, US secretary of state Henry Kissinger was awarded the prize in 1973 for negotiating an armistice in the Vietnam War despite his involvement in previous armed conflicts. Two members of the awards committee resigned in protest over Kissinger being named a recipient of the Peace Prize.

On the other hand, some recipients of the Peace Prize have been universally praised. Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his work in pioneering the nonviolent aspects of the civil rights movement. Nelson Mandela received the prize in 1993 for his role in helping to end apartheid in South Africa. In 2014, Malala Yousafzai, an activist for girls' education who had been shot by the Taliban in 2012, became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner to date. She was just seventeen years old when she received the award for her efforts in fighting for the rights of all children to go to school.

Bibliography

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"Anti-Nuclear Weapons Group Ican Wins Nobel Peace Prize." BBC, 6 Oct. 2017, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41524583. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.

"The Curious History of the Nobel Prize." The Conversation, 7 Oct. 2016, theconversation.com/the-curious-history-of-the-nobel-peace-prize-66609. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.

"The Nobel Peace Prize—History." The Norwegian Nobel Institute, www.nobelpeaceprize.org/History. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.

"The Nobel Peace Prize—Nobel Committee." The Norwegian Nobel Institute, www.nobelpeaceprize.org/Organization/Nobel-Committee. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.

"Nobel Peace Prize: The Winners That Soared and Sank." U.S. News & World Report, 29 Sept. 2017, www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-09-29/nobel-peace-prize-the-winners-that-soared-and-sank. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.

"Nobel Peace Prize Winners—The Full List." Guardian, 7 Oct. 2011, www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/oct/07/nobel-peace-prize-winners-list-2011. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.

"Nobel Prize Fast Facts." CNN, 9 Oct. 2017, www.cnn.com/2013/09/12/world/nobel-prize-fast-facts/index.html. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.

Popkin, Gabriel. "Update the Nobel Prizes." New York Times, 3 Oct. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/opinion/update-the-nobel-prizes.html. Accessed 23 Oct. 2017.