Nobel peace jury faces scrutiny after Trump’s campaign for prize
Experts say the Nobel Peace Prize committee may favour a broadly supported recipient when this year’s laureate is announced, after Donald Trump’s public campaign for the award placed unusual pressure on the five-member jury. Possible candidates mentioned include children’s rights groups, Sudanese volunteers and press-freedom organisations.
The Nobel Peace Prize committee is facing heightened scrutiny ahead of this year’s announcement after Donald Trump’s public campaign for the award placed unusual pressure on the five-member jury, experts told AFP. The committee’s secretary, Kristian Berg Harpviken, said lobbying and attempts to influence the panel were familiar features of the prize process. He acknowledged, however, that the committee was being closely watched by the US president again this year.
The pressure followed last year’s award to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. According to the supplied material, Machado later gave Trump her Nobel gold medal after the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, saying he deserved it. Haakon Gjerlow, acting director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, said the events could encourage the committee to choose a laureate with broad support.
He suggested that a less controversial choice might follow last year’s prize. Among Gjerlow’s preferred possibilities was a joint award to Save the Children and Ukrainian children’s rights activist Mykola Kuleba. Kuleba campaigns for the return of Ukrainian children whom the source says were illegally taken to Russia from occupied territories.
Other names and organisations mentioned by Gjerlow included Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms, a volunteer network assisting people affected by war and hunger; the Committee to Protect Journalists; the International Space Station; UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese; the International Criminal Court; and Pope Leo XIV. The peace prize is due to be announced on October 9. The award includes a diploma, gold medal and a cheque of about $1.2 million, shared if there is more than one laureate.
The wider Nobel season begins with the medicine prize, followed by physics and chemistry, while the economics prize concludes the awards week on October 13. The supplied material also reports speculation about the literature prize, which is due on October 8, but those predictions are separate from the peace award.
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