The Norwegian Nobel Committee each year awards
the Nobel Peace Prize (Norwegian and Swedish:
Nobels fredspris) "to the person who shall
have done the most or the best work for fraternity
between nations, for the abolition or reduction
of standing armies and for the holding and
promotion of peace congresses."
It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established
by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel (who died
in 1896), awarded for outstanding contributions
in chemistry, physics, literature, peace,
and physiology or medicine.
As dictated by Nobel's will, the award is
administered by the Norwegian Nobel Committee
and awarded by a committee of five people
elected by the Parliament of Norway.
The first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in
1901 to Frédéric Passy and Henry Dunant;
the prize was most recently awarded to the
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear
Weapons in 2017.
Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma,
and a monetary award prize that has varied
throughout the years.
In 1901, Passy and Dunant shared a Prize of
150,782 Swedish kronor, which was equal to
7,731,004 kronor in 2008.
The Peace Prize is presented annually in Oslo,
in the presence of the King of Norway, on
December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death,
and is the only Nobel Prize not presented
in Stockholm.
Unlike the other prizes, the Peace Prize is
occasionally awarded to an organisation (such
as the International Committee of the Red
Cross, a three-time recipient) rather than
an individual.
The prize is considered the most controversial
of the Nobel Prizes with several of the selections
having been criticised.
Despite having been nominated five times,
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi never won the Prize.
Following his assassination in 1948, the committee
considered awarding it to him posthumously
but decided against it and instead withheld
the Prize that year with the explanation that
"there was no suitable living candidate."
In 1961, Dag Hammarskjöld, who died after
his nomination but several months before the
announcement, became the only laureate to
be recognised posthumously; following this,
the statutes were changed to make a future
posthumous prize nearly impossible.
In 1973, Le Duc Tho declined the Prize, because
"he was not in a position to accept the Prize,
citing the situation in Vietnam as his reason."
Linus Pauling, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate
in 1962, is the only person to have been awarded
two unshared Nobel Prizes; he won the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry in 1954.
At 17 years of age, Malala Yousafzai, the
2014 recipient, is the youngest to be awarded
the Peace Prize.
== Laureates ==
As of 2018, the Peace Prize has been awarded
to 106 individuals and 24 organizations.
Seventeen women have won the Nobel Peace Prize,
more than any other Nobel Prize.
Only two recipients have won multiple Prizes:
the International Committee of the Red Cross
has won three times (1917, 1944 and 1963)
and the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees has won twice (1954
and 1981).
There have been 19 years since its creation
in which the Peace Prize was not awarded,
more times than any other Nobel Prize.
Lê Đức Thọ is the only person to refuse
to accept a Nobel Peace Prize.
He was jointly awarded the 1973 award with
Henry Kissinger but declined the prize on
grounds that such "bourgeois sentimentalities"
were not for him[93] and that the Paris Peace
Accords were not being adhered to in full.
== See also ==
List of Nobel laureates
List of peace activists
== Notes ==
A Elihu Root, Austen Chamberlain, Charles
G. Dawes, Frank B. Kellogg, and Norman Angell
were all awarded their respective Prizes one
year late because the Committee decided that
none of the nominations in the year in which
they are listed as being awarded the Prize
met the criteria in Nobel's will; per its
rules the Committee delayed the awarding of
the Prizes until the next year, although they
were awarded as the previous year's Prize.
B Carl von Ossietzky's Prize was awarded in
absentia because he was refused a passport
by the government of Germany.
C Dag Hammarskjöld's Prize was awarded posthumously.
D Lê Đức Thọ declined to accept the
Prize.
E Andrei Sakharov's Prize was awarded in absentia
because he was refused a passport by the government
of the Soviet Union.
F Aung San Suu Kyi's Prize was awarded in
absentia because she was being held prisoner
by the government of Burma.
Following her release from house arrest and
election to the Pyithu Hluttaw, Suu Kyi accepted
her award in person on 16 June 2012.
G Liu Xiaobo's Prize was awarded in absentia
because he was imprisoned in China.
== References ==
=== Citations ===
=== Sources ===
== External links ==
Official website of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
