Misplaced Pages

#33966

29-567: The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize annually "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." As dictated by Alfred Nobel 's will, the award is administered by the Norwegian Nobel Committee and awarded by a committee of five people elected by

58-740: A lawyer from 1965 to 1973, while also taking a master's degree in 1970 at New York University . In 1973 Heffermehl became an assistant director at the office of the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman . He left this position in 1980 to become the first secretary-general of the Norwegian Humanist Association . He left the Humanist Association in 1982 to work as an independent writer. In addition to writing non-fiction books, Heffermehl has translated several books to Norwegian . In 1988 he became

87-490: A leader of the Nobel Family Association for 15 years, Michael Nobel, supported the criticism voiced by Heffermehl, warning that Norwegian politicians may lose their independent control of the peace prize. Heffermehl died late December 2023, at the age of 85. Heffermehl established a fund and instructed that the money be used as prize money for "The Real Nobel Peace Prize". The prize was first awarded in

116-416: A legislative body could not necessarily be expected to handle a judicial task like managing a legal will. The task of a parliament is to create and change laws whereas a will can not be changed unless the premises are clearly outdated. However, this question was not debated in depth, out of contemporary fear that the donated money might be lost in legal battles if the body was not created soon. On 26 April 1897

145-411: A loose personal union . Despite its members being appointed by Parliament, the committee is a private body tasked with awarding a private prize. In recent decades, most committee members were retired politicians. The committee is assisted by its secretariat, Norwegian Nobel Institute . The committee holds their meetings in the institute's building, where the winner is also announced. Since 1990, however,

174-694: A prize of 150,782 Swedish kronor (equal to 7,731,004 kronor in 2008), and most recently in 2023 to Narges Mohammadi . As of 2024, the Peace Prize has been awarded to 111 individuals and 28 organizations. Nineteen women have won the Nobel Peace Prize, more than any other Nobel Prize. Only two recipients have won multiple Peace Prizes: the International Committee of the Red Cross has won three times (1917, 1944 and 1963) and

203-687: A similar direction. This, says Heffermehl, runs contrary to Alfred Nobel's wishes to abandon military institutions. In an interview with Ny Tid he suggested that the current Committee members be replaced with people such as Jan Egeland , Ingrid Fiskaa , Jostein Gaarder and Sverre Lodgaard . Other suggestions from Heffermehl include Gunnar Garbo , Ingrid Eide , Erik Dammann , Torild Skard , Reiulf Steen , Johan Galtung and Berit Ås . In Nobels vilje , Heffermehl regretted that Eide had not been hired as Nobel Committee secretary when she actually applied for that position in 1990. In November 2023,

232-756: A writer and activist for peace and against nuclear arms . He was the honorary president, and president, of the Norwegian Peace Council , a vice president of the International Peace Bureau , and a vice president of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms . Born in Rena, Heffermehl enrolled at the University of Oslo , graduating with the cand.jur. degree in 1964. He then worked as

261-527: Is not good enough to receive a prize whose criteria explicitly pertain to disarmament and peace work. His views were first explained in depth in the 2008 book Nobels vilje (English: "Nobel's Will"). Since 1948, the selection of members of the Nobel Committee has been delegated from the Parliament of Norway (against what Nobel prescribed) to the major political parties. According to Heffermehl,

290-597: Is still composed mainly of politicians. A 1903 proposition to elect a law scholar ( Ebbe Hertzberg ) was rejected. In late 1948, the election system was changed to make the committee more proportional with parliamentary representation of Norwegian political parties . The Norwegian Labour Party, which controlled a simple majority of seats in the Norwegian Parliament orchestrated this change. This practice has been cemented, but sharply criticized. There have been propositions about including non-Norwegian members in

319-580: The Norwegian political parties have used committee membership as an award to over-the-hill politicians in recognition of their service, rather than picking non-partisan people with an actual background in peace activism. Furthermore, Heffermehl, being an opponent of the Norwegian membership in NATO, found that the broad pro-NATO consensus among Norwegian political parties has skewed the Nobel Peace Prize in

SECTION 10

#1732793412034

348-624: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has won twice (1954 and 1981). There have been 19 years in which the Peace Prize was not awarded. Norwegian Nobel Committee Five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament . In his will, Alfred Nobel tasked the parliament of Norway with selecting the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. At the time, Norway and Sweden were in

377-449: The Parliament of Norway . Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma , and a monetary award prize (that has varied throughout the years). It is one of the five prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel (who died in 1896), awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry , physics , literature , physiology or medicine . The Peace Prize is presented annually in Oslo , in

406-717: The Quisling government to take over the functions of the Nobel Committee led to the resignation of Jahn and other committee members. The Swedish consulate-general in Oslo formally took over the management of the Foundation's Oslo property on behalf of the Nobel Foundation. The members as of 2021 are: The committee is assisted by the Norwegian Nobel Institute , its secretariat. The leader of

435-484: The committee became more independent. Accordingly, the name was changed from the Norwegian Nobel Committee to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament ( Norwegian : Det norske Stortings Nobelkomité ) in 1901, but changed back in 1977. Now, active parliamentarians cannot sit on the committee, unless they have explicitly stated their intent to step down shortly. Nonetheless, the committee

464-483: The will of Alfred Nobel , thereby making several awards—45% of the awards after 1945 —juridically illegal. Among the laureates perceived by Heffermehl as illegal are the more controversial laureates, such as Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (1973) and Arafat , Peres and Rabin (1994), but also less controversial ones such as Mother Teresa (1979) and Elie Wiesel (1986). Although many laureates have done "commendable work", Heffermehl stressed that this

493-444: The Norwegian Parliament accepted the assignment and on 5 August the same year it formalized the process of election and service time for committee members. The first Peace Prize was awarded in 1901 to Henri Dunant and Frédéric Passy . In the beginning, the committee was filled with active parliamentarians and the annual reports were discussed in parliamentary sessions. These ties to the Norwegian Parliament were later weakened so that

522-593: The award ceremony takes place in Oslo City Hall . Alfred Nobel died in December 1896. In January 1897 the contents of his will were unveiled. It was written as early as in 1895. He declared that a Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses", and that some of Nobel's money

551-487: The book The Real Nobel Peace Prize. A Squandered Opportunity to Abolish War was published. It is based on in-depth studies of the locked-down archives of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. In the autumn of 2010 Heffermehl published a critical study, The Nobel Peace Prize. What Nobel really wanted . The aim was to look into the methods used by the Norwegian establishment to repress his rediscovery of

580-612: The committee, but this has never happened. The Norwegian Nobel Committee is assisted by the Norwegian Nobel Institute , established in 1904. The committee might receive well more than a hundred nominations and asks the Nobel Institute in February every year to research about twenty candidates. The director of the Nobel Institute also serves as secretary to the Norwegian Nobel Committee; currently this position belongs to Olav Njølstad. In January 1944 an attempt by

609-507: The content of the prize for "the champions of peace" named in the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel. Nobel made a choice between two fundamentally different ways forward for humanity, either continuing to seek peace by military means or by co-operation on international law, institutions, and disarmament. When Parliament and the Nobel Committee ignored his views and declared that no one supported his interpretation, Heffermehl set out to prove them wrong. He found that numerous academic and other works over

SECTION 20

#1732793412034

638-476: The institute holds the title secretary. The secretary is not a member of the committee, but is an employee of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. Fredrik Heffermehl Fredrik Stang Heffermehl (11 November 1938 – 21 December 2023) was a Norwegian jurist, writer and peace activist . He worked as a lawyer and civil servant from 1965 to 1982 and was the first secretary-general of the Norwegian Humanist Association from 1980 to 1982. He later made his mark as

667-520: The other hand, stated that Norway already had put enough pressure on Israel, through diplomatic channels. In May 2008 Heffermehl, this time together with prominent jurists such as Ketil Lund and Jan Fridthjof Bernt , again petitioned the Norwegian Prime Minister to take action. From August 2007 Heffermehl marked himself as a staunch critic of the Norwegian Nobel Committee , which, according to Heffermehl, has failed to comply with

696-544: The presence of the King of Norway , on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death, and is the only Nobel Prize not presented in Stockholm . Unlike the other prizes, the Peace Prize is occasionally awarded to an organisation (such as the International Committee of the Red Cross , a three-time recipient) rather than an individual. The Nobel Peace Prize was first awarded in 1901 to Frédéric Passy and Henry Dunant , who shared

725-646: The president of the NGO Norwegian Peace Council , and a member of the board of the International Peace Bureau . In 1994 he became vice president in the International Peace Bureau, and in 1997 he assumed the same position in the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms . After stepping down as president of the Norwegian Peace Council, he was proclaimed honorary president. Heffermehl

754-651: The years had expressed the same views on the role of Bertha von Suttner and that Nobel intended to support the antimilitarist peace movement. This made it necessary to use the fate of the Peace Prize for a case study of the distortion of Nobel's testament and how Parliament had managed the prize entrusted to them by Nobel. "The Nobel Peace Prize" in English has been updated and expanded for editions in Chinese (FLP, Jan. 2011), Swedish (Leopard, Oct. 2011), Finnish (LIKE, Dec. 2011), Russian (Aletheia, in 2012). On 10 December 2011,

783-513: Was an outspoken supporter of Mordechai Vanunu , the technician who revealed the Israeli nuclear programme . Heffermehl said in 2008 that he had nominated Vanunu for the Nobel Peace Prize eighteen times. He also tried to pressure the Norwegian government to grant political asylum to Vanunu on numerous occasions, citing that Norway had a special responsibility due to their 1959 delivery of heavy water to Israel via Great Britain. In April 2008 it

812-579: Was revealed that the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration had granted asylum to Vanunu in 2004, but the decision was overturned by then-Minister Erna Solberg . Upon the revelation Heffermehl expressed concern that although the political leadership of Norway changed in 2005, not nearly enough was done in the way of helping Vanunu, due to perceived loyalty concerns to the United States . Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre , on

841-507: Was to be donated to this prize. The Nobel Foundation manages the assets. The other Nobel Prizes were to be awarded by Swedish bodies ( Swedish Academy , Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences , Karolinska Institutet ) that already existed, whereas the responsibility for the Peace Prize was given to the Norwegian Parliament , specifically "a committee of five persons to be elected" by it. A new body had to be created—the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Jurist Fredrik Heffermehl has noted that

#33966