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Jason Rodrigues
This is how the Guardian covered the first Nobel peace prize, awarded in 1901 to Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy:
Five years ago the world was surprised by the announcement that the late Alfred Nobel, who had become rich and famous by inventing dynamite and other high explosives, had bequeathed a vast fortune for distribution from time to time among the persons who had done most to advance the cause of peace. It was difficult at first to think of him as a sympathiser with the peace movement, unless he might be supposed to have regarded his explosives as a means of making warfare so terrible that civilisation must needs refuse to face it. But the seeming paradox was soon forgotten in admiration for the splendid humanity which prompted Nobel’s bequest and dictated the remarkable conditions under which the prizes founded by him were to be awarded, irrespective of nationality, to those who, in various departments, had done most to benefit mankind.
According to the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist and engineer who created dynamite and who founded and funded the prize, the award should go to the person “who has worked the most or the best for the fraternisation of peoples and the abolition or reduction of standing armies as well as the formation and spread of peace congresses”.
The times when the prize has not been awarded has often been amid periods of major wars because there were not perceived to be any worthy winners.
Until the first world war, the prize often went to pioneers of the organised peace movement, but between the world wars, the focus moved to politicians who had worked for peace negotiations and international agreements, as well as those behind humanitarian work.
After the second world war, the prize most often rewarded efforts in arms control and disarmament, peace mediation, democracy, human rights and contributors to making the world more organised and peaceful.
In recent years, the prize has also been awarded for work to counter environmental threats and the climate criss.
Also tipped for this year’s Nobel peace prize is, for the fourth year in a row, the climate activist Greta Thunberg, Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate and the broadcaster David Attenborough.
The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter notes that it is also possible that the committee may not award the prize to anybody – which has happened 19 times in the past, although not since 1972.
Nobel peace prize winner to be announced in less than an hourThe Nobel peace prize is announced today at a ceremony in Oslo, which we will be reporting live here.
Among this year’s tipped contenders are the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, and the UN secretary general, António Guterres.
The committee had a total of 351 candidates to choose from (259 of which are individuals and 92 organisations) and the winner will be awarded a gold medal, a diploma and 11m Swedish krona.
While we await the announcement from the Nobel Institute, due at 11am CEST (10am BST), and all the reaction, we will be looking at who the leading contenders are for this year’s prize.
After the announcement, a peace dove will fly from the windows of the Nobel Peace Centre and a photo of the new Nobel peace prize laureate revealed in the Nobel Field installation.
On Saturday, the centre will hold a celebration of this year’s laureate with a lecture by the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen.