The Nobel Peace Prize Watch 2016
NOBEL LAUREATES, 11 Jan 2016
Fredrik S. Heffermehl and Tomas Magnusson – TRANSCEND Media Service
“… this year’s Peace Prize … speaks to the core of Alfred Nobel’s will and Nobel’s vision of fraternity, disarmament and peace-building forums. Not because the [Tunisian] Quartet has actively sought to promote disarmament, but because its work has led to a better platform for peace and nonviolent resolution of conflicts. This is a story about building strong institutions to ensure justice and stability, and demonstrating the will to engage in dialogue and cooperation.”
— Nobel committee chair Kaci Kullmann Five, in opening words of 2015 Nobel speech. Gothenburg/Oslo, January 5, 2016
Who Should Win the 2016 Nobel? – Make Nominations
The quote above signified great progress in our campaign to reclaim the peace prize, a first, important result of the lawsuit the NPPW initiated in Sweden. Eight years ago, Nobel was entirely forgotten, in 2015 the committee chair in an exemplary way opened her speech explaining his intention. Yet, global demilitarization, a main aspect of Nobel´s idea of “brotherhood of nations,” was still not expressly mentioned.
The progress should be used to promote good nominations, of qualified candidates, for 2016, before the Feb. 1 deadline. Send to
The right to nominate is limited, to parliamentarians, certain professors, and others, all over the world. See
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_intro/nomination_criteria/
If you are not entitled to nominate, please seek out someone who is.
For the first time since the 1990 speech for Gorbachev, the Nobel awarders have addressed and (honestly) confirmed his intention. It may be only a tactical move in the lawsuit. To lock the committee to their words we recommend all nominations to open by commending the committee chair´s opening words in the speech for the Tunisian Quartet, adding that Nobel clearly had the relations between nations, global “peace-building forums,” in mind. (The correspondence about the peace prize between Alfred Nobel and Bertha von Suttner makes this perfectly clear).
A good nomination takes time; please start the process at once. Please give an extra thought to potential candidates from non-Western countries. Please send us a (blind) copy to
for inclusion (hopefully) in the list of qualified candidates nominated for 2016.
- Lawsuit to Secure Prize for Core Peace Work
We wish to see an end to the misuse of the prize for Western political agendas. After 8 years of futile attempts to have Alfred Nobel´s intention respected we initiated a lawsuit in Stockholm. See our website
For an illustration of whom Nobel intended to support, see our list of the 25 qualified to win among the near 300 actually nominated for 2015:
http://www.nobelwill.org/index.html?tab=7#list
While there, please sign the appeal and consider a donation to the work of NPPW/Lay Down your Arms to promote a weapons-free world An ambitious goal – but why should we be less bold and ambitious than Nobel (and Bertha von Suttner, and Andrew Carnegie) were over 100 years ago?
We need 10 000s of USDs for lawyer fees, so please contribute. A lawsuit is different. For once, our movement has a legal right to respect for its arguments. We can win! A small investment can secure an annual $ 1 million for efforts for a weapons-free world! This is good, efficient fundraising, but we have to be very precise. As long as many wish all kinds of peace work to win, the awarders will also feel free to promote the Obamas, the EU …, and continue to ignore the antimilitarist core purpose of Nobel.
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Fredrik S. Heffermehl, cand. jur, LLM NYU, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and ex-Vice President of the International Peace Bureau. He is the author of The Nobel Peace Prize, What Nobel Really Wanted (Praeger, 2010 – expanded versions in Chinese, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish and [2014] Russian). fredpax@online.no – http://www.nobelwill.org.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 11 Jan 2016.
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