The prestigious Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the Japan Anti-Atomic Weapons Organization, Nihon Hidankyowhich brings together survivors of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The announcement took place in Oslo this Friday, October 11, 2024 at 11:00 a.m. Paris time.
Nihon Hidankyo “receives the peace prize for his efforts for a world without nuclear weapons and for having demonstrated, through testimonies, that nuclear weapons must never be used again”, declared the president of the Norwegian Nobel committee , Jørgen Watne Frydnes.
The Nobel Peace Prize is the fifth and final field mentioned by founder Alfred Nobel in his will. It is awarded by a committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament (Storting), unlike other prizes which are selected by the Nobel Institution.
The Nobel Peace Prize in the face of global conflicts
Highly anticipated, this prize was more difficult than ever to predict as conflicts are increasing in the world. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, the planet mattered 59 armed conflicts in 2023almost double their number in 2009.
If some experts saw this situation as a reason not to award the peace prize this year, as has been done 19 times in the pastthe Norwegian Nobel committee estimated that such a context makes its award “perhaps more important than ever”.
The place of the woman
Awarded since 1901, the Nobel Prizes recognize people who have “worked for the benefit of humanity”, in accordance with the wish of their creator, the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. Last year, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi.
Since 1901, only 19 women were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, out of a total of 111 laureates. The first winner, Bertha von Suttnerwas honored in 1905 for her work The weapons down! (Hands down!), and distinguished “for her courage in the face of the horrors of war”.
The percentage of women winners still remains low today, reaching only 6,5 % of all the Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic Sciences. More than half of these women were awarded after the year 2000almost a century after the creation of the Nobel Prize in 1901.
Previous winners
Here is the list of winners of the last ten editions of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded by the Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:
– 2023 : Narges Mohammadi (Iran) for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight for the promotion of human rights and freedom for all.
– 2022 : Ales Bialiatski (Belarus), the NGO Memorial (Russia) and the Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine) for their promotion of the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens, and their efforts to document crimes of war, human rights violations and abuse of power.
– 2021 : Maria Ressa (Philippines/United States) and Dmitri Mouratov (Russia) for their efforts in defending freedom of expression, which is a prerequisite for any democracy and lasting peace.
– 2020 : World Food Program (UN) for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to improving conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for playing a leading role in efforts to prevent the use hunger as a weapon of war.
– 2019 : Abiy Ahmed (Ethiopia) for his efforts to establish peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
– 2018 : Denis Mukwege (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Nadia Murad (Iraq) for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.
– 2017 : International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Switzerland) for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of atomic weapons and its groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty ban on such weapons.
– 2016 : Juan Manuel Santos (Colombia) for his efforts in favor of the peace process with the FARC.
– 2015 : National Dialogue Quartet (Tunisia) for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralist democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution in 2011.
– 2014 : Kailash Satyarthi (India) and Malala Yousafzai (Pakistan) for their fight against the repression of children and young people as well as for the rights of all children to education.
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