The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced soon, although "there’s not much peace around"
From CNN's Christian Edwards
The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded today as Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine rages on and other flashpoints threaten to ignite across the globe.
Given that many efforts to promote peace have grown increasingly frustrated, to some observers this seems an inauspicious time to award one of humanity’s most coveted accolades.
“There’s not a lot of peace around at the moment, so it’s not clear that there’s an outstanding peacemaker to give the award to,” Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told CNN.
But the peace prize can also serve as a beacon of hope in fraught and fractured times.
“I think it’s precisely in a situation like this that the peace prize becomes particularly important. It’s necessary to point to achievements and to contributions that are important and happen everywhere in the world,” Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, told CNN.
The Nobel Peace Prize is tough to predict, and these two experts also stressed that the committee seems to delight in making surprise choices.
Nobel Peace Prize winners Natallia Pintsyuk, left, representing her husband, the activist Ales Bialiatski, Yan Rachinsky, representing the Russian organization Memorial and Oleksandra Matviichuk, representing the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties, pose with their awards at a ceremony in Oslo, in 2022. Rodrigo Freitas/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Human rights groups from Russia and Ukraine -- Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties -- won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the jailed Belarusian advocate Ales Bialiatski.
The laureates were honored for "an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power" in their respective countries.
They have for many years promoted the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
The Ukrainian group, Center for Civil Liberties, “engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population” since the invasion was launched in February last year, the committee said.
Memorial was founded in 1987 and, after the fall of the Soviet Union, became one of Russia’s most prominent human rights watchdogs. It has worked to expose the abuses and atrocities of the Stalinist era.
Bialiatski, meanwhile, has documented human rights abuses in Belarus since the 1980s. He founded the organization Viasna, or Spring, in 1996 after a referendum that consolidated the authoritarian powers of president and close Russian ally, Alexander Lukashenko.
The activist was arrested in 2020 amid widespread protests against Lukashenko’s regime, and was awarded the prize while in prison. In March this year, he was sentenced by a court in Minsk to 10 years in a maximum-security penal colony.
8 min ago
A colorful list of past laureates – but not without controversy
From CNN's Christian Edwards
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai during the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony in Oslo, in December 2014. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
The prize is set to be awarded for the 104th time today, with the winner -- or winners -- joining 140 previous laureates.
Among them are a number of celebrated figures and agencies, and some controversial recipients.
Four US Presidents have won the award; Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, who triumphed in 2009 for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
They have been joined by several revolutionary and political leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Polish dissident Lech Walesa.
International organizations are occasionally honored too; the United Nations won the award in 2001, the European Union joined them in 2012, and the World Food Programme is the most recent winner.
In 2014, Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai became the youngest winner of the award, aged just 17.
But many winners have proven controversial. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was given the accolade just four years ago. Since then he has been condemned for his role in presiding over a protracted civil war that, by many accounts, bears the hallmarks of genocide and has the potential to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region.
11 min ago
Who will win the Nobel Peace Prize?
From CNN's Christian Edwards
Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, holds the Nobel Peace Prize medal in Kyiv, in December 2022. Yevhenii Zavhorodnii/Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images
The latest winner of one of the world's most esteemed accolades will soon be announced.
The Nobel Peace Prize is notoriously difficult to predict. There are 351 candidates for this year's award -- the second highest number of candidates ever, just shy of the record of 376 set in 2016.
But the notoriously cloistered Nobel committee keep their names closely guarded and do not release a shortlist. (In fact, the names of the candidates are kept so secret that they are not revealed until 50 years have elapsed.)
The award has gone to some of the most famous names in history, but has also been used to herald some lesser known agents of change.
This year's award will be announced imminently at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo at 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. ET).
The 2023 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in the Norwegian capital of Oslo at around 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. ET).
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is -- again -- among the bookmakers' favorites, but experts do not rate his odds.
Peace prize specialists told CNN they expert two issues to be high on this year's agenda: climate disaster, and the rights of indigenous peoples.
The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded today as Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine rages on and other flashpoints threaten to ignite across the globe.
Given that many efforts to promote peace have grown increasingly frustrated, to some observers this seems an inauspicious time to award one of humanity’s most coveted accolades.
“There’s not a lot of peace around at the moment, so it’s not clear that there’s an outstanding peacemaker to give the award to,” Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told CNN.
But the peace prize can also serve as a beacon of hope in fraught and fractured times.
“I think it’s precisely in a situation like this that the peace prize becomes particularly important. It’s necessary to point to achievements and to contributions that are important and happen everywhere in the world,” Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, told CNN.
The Nobel Peace Prize is tough to predict, and these two experts also stressed that the committee seems to delight in making surprise choices.
Nobel Peace Prize winners Natallia Pintsyuk, left, representing her husband, the activist Ales Bialiatski, Yan Rachinsky, representing the Russian organization Memorial and Oleksandra Matviichuk, representing the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties, pose with their awards at a ceremony in Oslo, in 2022. Rodrigo Freitas/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Human rights groups from Russia and Ukraine -- Memorial and the Center for Civil Liberties -- won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the jailed Belarusian advocate Ales Bialiatski.
The laureates were honored for "an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power" in their respective countries.
They have for many years promoted the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
The Ukrainian group, Center for Civil Liberties, “engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population” since the invasion was launched in February last year, the committee said.
Memorial was founded in 1987 and, after the fall of the Soviet Union, became one of Russia’s most prominent human rights watchdogs. It has worked to expose the abuses and atrocities of the Stalinist era.
Bialiatski, meanwhile, has documented human rights abuses in Belarus since the 1980s. He founded the organization Viasna, or Spring, in 1996 after a referendum that consolidated the authoritarian powers of president and close Russian ally, Alexander Lukashenko.
The activist was arrested in 2020 amid widespread protests against Lukashenko’s regime, and was awarded the prize while in prison. In March this year, he was sentenced by a court in Minsk to 10 years in a maximum-security penal colony.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai during the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony in Oslo, in December 2014. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
The prize is set to be awarded for the 104th time today, with the winner -- or winners -- joining 140 previous laureates.
Among them are a number of celebrated figures and agencies, and some controversial recipients.
Four US Presidents have won the award; Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, who triumphed in 2009 for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
They have been joined by several revolutionary and political leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Polish dissident Lech Walesa.
International organizations are occasionally honored too; the United Nations won the award in 2001, the European Union joined them in 2012, and the World Food Programme is the most recent winner.
In 2014, Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai became the youngest winner of the award, aged just 17.
But many winners have proven controversial. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was given the accolade just four years ago. Since then he has been condemned for his role in presiding over a protracted civil war that, by many accounts, bears the hallmarks of genocide and has the potential to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region.
Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, holds the Nobel Peace Prize medal in Kyiv, in December 2022. Yevhenii Zavhorodnii/Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images
The latest winner of one of the world's most esteemed accolades will soon be announced.
The Nobel Peace Prize is notoriously difficult to predict. There are 351 candidates for this year's award -- the second highest number of candidates ever, just shy of the record of 376 set in 2016.
But the notoriously cloistered Nobel committee keep their names closely guarded and do not release a shortlist. (In fact, the names of the candidates are kept so secret that they are not revealed until 50 years have elapsed.)
The award has gone to some of the most famous names in history, but has also been used to herald some lesser known agents of change.
This year's award will be announced imminently at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo at 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. ET).
