As part of the 2019 Oslo European Green Capital celebrations, the Nobel Peace Centre puts on an exhibition about climate and environment in the spirit of Alfred Nobel. The aim is to create empathy with a rapidly changing planet through involvement, discussions and action.
This year the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded for the 100th time since 1901. So far, the prize has been awarded 99 times to 133 Nobel Laureates between 1901 and 2018, 106 individuals and 27 organizations. Since the International Committee of the Red Cross has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize three times (in 1917, 1944 and 1963), and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize two times (in 1954 and 1981), there are 24 individual organizations which have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Criteria for being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Alfred Nobel mentions three criteria before awarding the prize: “for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Among those who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize since 1901, are some of the most significant figures in our recent history. True to their ideals, but at the same time focused on dialogue and collaboration, and of doing mankind good. Laureates like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Fridtjof Nansen, The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Albert Schweitzer and Alva Myrdal all contribute to making the Nobel Peace Prize the world’s most prestigious prize.
Related: Controversial Nobel Peace Prize Winners
Nobel Peace Prize 100 years
In 2001 the Norwegian publisher J. W. Cappelens Forlag AS published the book The Nobel Peace Prize 1901- 2000. Hundred years for peace is published by in connection with the Nobel Peace Prize centenary. The book is written by Ivar Libæk , Øivind Stenersen og Asle Sveen.
After an opening article about Alfred Nobel, the history of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, The Norwegian Nobel Institute and the development of the Peace Prize, a chronological presentation of the Peace Prize Laureates from 1901-2000 follows.
Related: Danish Nobel Winner Foiled the Führer
Each Prize Laureate is presented through a short biography, the reasons for the Nobel Committee’s choice, international reactions to the choice of winner and reflections on the impact of the year’s award. Excerpts from the Laureate’s speech or Nobel lecture are given.
The presentation is divided into seven main parts each of which opens with an historical survey of the world’s situation, the economical or political aspects dominating society, or special events characterizing the period. The articles set the Peace Prizes in a broader context.
The book ends with an essay on the laureates’ ideas of peacemaking: Roads to peace.
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All the Nobel Peace Prize winners
It has been the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s responsibility for more than hundred years to interpret Alfred Nobel’s will and decide who is deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. Here are all the Nobel Peace Prize Award Winners from 1901 – 2018:
Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad “for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict”
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”
Juan Manuel Santos “for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end”
National Dialogue Quartet “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011”
Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) “for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons”
European Union (EU) “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”
Liu Xiaobo “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”
Barack H. Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”
Martti Ahtisaari “for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts”
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”
Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below”
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Mohamed ElBaradei “for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way”
Wangari Muta Maathai “for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace”
Shirin Ebadi “for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children”
Jimmy Carter “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”
United Nations (U.N.) and Kofi Annan “for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world”
Kim Dae-jung “for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular”
Médecins Sans Frontières “in recognition of the organization’s pioneering humanitarian work on several continents”
John Hume and David Trimble “for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland”
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Jody Williams “for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines”
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and José Ramos-Horta “for their work towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor”
Joseph Rotblat and Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs “for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms”
Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East”
Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa”
Rigoberta Menchú Tum “in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples”
Aung San Suu Kyi “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights”
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev “for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community”
The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso)
United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
Oscar Arias Sánchez “for his work for peace in Central America, efforts which led to the accord signed in Guatemala on August 7 this year”
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
Alva Myrdal and Alfonso García Robles
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat and Menachem Begin
Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan
Henry A. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money for 1972 was allocated to the Main Fund.
International Labour Organization (I.L.O.)
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
Comité international de la Croix Rouge (International Committee of the Red Cross) and Ligue des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge (League of Red Cross Societies)
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Lord (John) Boyd Orr of Brechin
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
Friends Service Council (The Quakers) and American Friends Service Committee (The Quakers)
Emily Greene Balch and John Raleigh Mott
Comité international de la Croix Rouge (International Committee of the Red Cross)
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.
Office international Nansen pour les Réfugiés (Nansen International Office for Refugees)
Cecil of Chelwood, Viscount (Lord Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne Cecil)
Sir Norman Angell (Ralph Lane)
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
Jane Addams and Nicholas Murray Butler
Lars Olof Jonathan (Nathan) Söderblom
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
Ferdinand Buisson and Ludwig Quidde
Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann
Sir Austen Chamberlain and Charles Gates Dawes
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
Karl Hjalmar Branting and Christian Lous Lange
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
Comité international de la Croix Rouge (International Committee of the Red Cross)
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.
Tobias Michael Carel Asser and Alfred Hermann Fried
Bureau international permanent de la Paix (Permanent International Peace Bureau)
Auguste Marie François Beernaert and Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet d’Estournelles de Constant, Baron de Constant de Rebecque
Klas Pontus Arnoldson and Fredrik Bajer
Ernesto Teodoro Moneta and Louis Renault
Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner, née Countess Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau
Institut de droit international (Institute of International Law)
Élie Ducommun and Charles Albert Gobat
Jean Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy
Climate Exhibition in Oslo in the spirit of Alfred Nobel, compiled by Tor Kjolberg