The winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is due to be announced later this evening by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
In March, the committee announced a record 278 nominations, accounting for 231 individuals and 47 organisations.
“The number of nominations increases almost every year,” Nobel representative Geir Lundestad said.
“We receive nominations from absolutely everywhere in the world.”
There are eligibility requirements for the people who nominate prospective peace prize recipients, but anybody – or anything – can be nominated.
This year the International Space Station and ‘Japanese people who conserve Article 9’, the law relating to the nation’s pacifist constitution, are among the known nominations.
However, nobody but the Nobel committee is aware of the full list of nominations, which will be kept secret for 50 years.
What is known, according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), is the information released by those who nominated potential laureates.
There are familiar and famous faces: U2 frontman Bono, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, and former British prime minister Tony Blair.
But an award for Edward Snowden and Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning – both firm frontrunners – would make a grand statement about a world considerably concerned about privacy and the role of whistleblowers in protecting formerly inalienable rights to it.
If Pope Francis wins he will be the first ever pontiff to receive a Nobel Peace Prize.
Then again, schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousafzai, nominated for a second year running, would be the youngest by a long margin.
Closer to Australia’s shores, nominee and Free West Papua campaign founder Benny Wenda will be in Norway during the award ceremony, a guest of the Oslo Freedom Forum.
The Ethiopian government has nominated Australian doctor Catherine Hamlin in recognition of more than 50 years she has spent treating women suffering from childbirth injuries.
With her husband Reg, Dr Hamlin founded the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital to provide free obstetric surgery.
Russian president Vladimir Putin, who on Tuesday marked his 62nd birthday in the Siberian wilderness, was nominated earlier this year for his role in dismantling Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles, but may have difficulty winning following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the bloody Ukraine conflict, and the still uncertain details surrounding the downing of MH17.
Joshua Keating from Slate has provided arguably the best suggestion for 2014’s Nobel Peace Prize, and one that has claimed the award a staggering 19 times: nobody.
“The original purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize was to reward the person who ‘shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses’,” he wrote.
“And on that score, there was not much to report this year.”
Original story http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-10/nobel-peace-prize-meet-the-2014-nominees/5801948
