Nobel Peace Prize goes to Belarus activist and human rights organizations from Russia and Ukraine

Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian Memorial Organization for Human Rights and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties have won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. The announcement was made this morning (7) by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The award to both organizations and the civic leader dialogues directly with the advance of authoritarianism in the Russian environment and with the Ukrainian War, which began in February this year, something that had already been raised before the announcement.

“They have made a remarkable effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and abuse of power,” the committee said in its statement. “Together, they demonstrate the importance of civil society for peace and democracy.”

In all, 343 candidates had been nominated for the award — of these, 92 were organizations. The figure is the second highest in the history of the award, behind only the record of 2016, when there were 376 candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The curiosity about the list of names, however, can only be resolved in 50 years. The candidates and those who nominated them — which, among others, involve leaders of countries and who has eventually been laureate — are under a kind of secrecy for five decades.

The absence of information leads to a race, often frustrated, of bets on the most highly rated. For this edition, at least three names linked to the ongoing war in Eastern Europe were aired: the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and opposition leaders of the Belarus dictatorship (Svetlana Tikhanovskaya) and the Vladimir Putin regime in Russia (Alexei Navalni ).

In recent editions, however, the result could to some extent be considered surprising. In 2022, when Tikhanovskaya and Navalni were also ventilated, alongside institutions such as the WHO (World Health Organization) and leaders linked to the environment, journalists Maria Ressa, from the Philippines, and Dmitri Muratov, from Russia, were awarded prizes for their work in defense of press freedom.

The Nobel was first awarded in 1901. Initially, there were five categories: peace, literature, chemistry, physics and medicine. A sixth —economy—was added decades later, in 1969.

Until the mid-20th century, winners in the peace category were politicians who sought to promote international peace, stability and justice through diplomacy and international agreements.

Since the end of World War II, the award has recognized efforts in the areas of disarmament, democracy and human rights. At the turn of the 21st century, the focus has broadened to include initiatives that try to contain the man-made climate crisis.

For some years now, the Nobel has also been criticized for its choices for the peace prize.

In 2017, pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi, laureate in 1991, was criticized for her silence on the humanitarian crisis involving ethnic Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, who were targeted by the country’s army and forced to flee. In 2019, the laureate was Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, awarded for ending the war with Eritrea — a year later, however, he led another confrontation in the north of the country, with separatists from the Tigris region, which is still in force today. .

In 2009, the then President of the United States, Barack Obama, was still in his first year in office when he was awarded the prize. The Democrat himself said he did not know exactly why he was honored.

No Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on 19 occasions. The Norwegian committee explains that, if none of the works analyzed are considered of real importance, the prize is reserved for the next year. But there were also periods – in the First and Second World War – in which the award was partially interrupted.

Until the 2021 edition, on 31 occasions the Nobel Peace Prize was shared by two winners and twice, between three people.

Given only to living authors, the prize was born to fulfill the will of chemist Alfred Nobel. The curious thing is that, in life, the Swede was known for having invented an artifact used in wars: dynamite. His father owned an explosives factory in St. Petersburg, and it was there that a young Nobel, just over 15 years old, became interested in nitroglycerin, an essential element of the explosive.

The discovery was not intended to be used on the battlefield. Nobel’s initial idea was that the artifact would help him in his work: as an engineer, he built bridges and buildings in Stockholm, and dynamite could implode rocks for that purpose. He patented the invention in the US in 1867, when he was 34 years old.

Shortly before he died of a brain hemorrhage, at 63, he left in his will that 94% of his assets should be used to create a fund to reward initiatives that help humanity.

Meet the last ten Nobel Peace Prize winners

• 2021: Journalists Maria Ressa (Philippine) and Dmitri Muratov (Russian), for their defense of freedom of expression, a prerequisite for democracy and lasting peace
• 2020: World Food Program (WFP), for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict
• 2019: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who signed a peace deal that ended two decades of hostilities with Eritrea
• 2018: Congolese Denis Mukwege and Iraqi Nadia Murad, who denounced violence towards victims of sexual violence as a weapon of war
• 2017: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican), for drawing attention to the risk of nuclear weapons
• 2016: Juan Manuel Santos, former president of Colombia who negotiated the peace agreement with the FARC
• 2015: Quartet for the National Dialogue of Tunisia, for the decisive contribution in the construction of a plural society in the country
• 2014: Pakistani Malala Yousafzai and Indian Kailash Satyarthi, awarded for the defense of children’s rights and education
• 2013: Netherlands-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons awarded for its advocacy of chemical weapons ban
• 2012: The European Union, for more than six decades promoting human rights and peace in Europe