The ambiguous award

Traditionally in October the scientific and cultural community awaits the nomination for the most pretigious international prize. The Nobel Prize is awarded annually for outstanding scientific research, revolutionary inventions, or profound contribution to culture or social development. The award is named after its founder, the Swedish engineer, chemist, inventor, and industrialist Alfred Bernhard Nobel. According to his will, prizes are awarded in medicine or physiology, physics and chemistry, literature, economy, and also the name of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate is announced.

The last one is the most famous and prestigious international award in the field of social, political, and humanitarian activity. The decision on whom to award the prize is made by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, members of which are elected by the Norwegian Storting from public and political figures. But choosing laureates is not influenced by the parliament. The peace prize can be awarded to separate individuals as well as governmental and non-governmental organizations. Jean Henri Dunant, Swiss entrepreneur and public figure, founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the French economist Frederic Passy were the first laureates of the prize.

This year’s list of candidates for the Peace Prize was very long. Even though it is not published, according to media reports, it included some 259 candidates, which is an absolute record for all the 112 years of the prize’s existence. There were slightly fewer candidates previous year, only 241.

This year, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). As the committee’s decision stated, for “its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons.” The organization appeared in the list of favorites at the last moment, after its experts started working on eliminating the Syrian chemical arsenal.

Decisions on the Nobel Peace Prize nominees have often stirred discussions, like it happened past year, when the European Union received the award. Critics said then that this organization did not always ensure peace.

There is no doubt that the decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee was influenced by the agreement between Russia and the United States on the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons. Technically, the execution of this task is entrusted to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. It is assumed that the world will completely get rid of more than a thousand tons of extremely hazardous chemical substances only by the summer of 2014.

The OPCW was created in April, 1997, after the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons entered into force. The organization’s main objective is ensuring control over adhering to the prohibition of chemical weapons, elimination of their stock, promoting cooperation in the field of non-military chemical industry, helping countries in providing protection against chemical weapons, and ensuring non-proliferation of chemical weapons.

The organization’s inspectors work only in the countries that signed the Convention. Their work begins only after certain political requirements are fulfilled. From this point of view, despite the importance of the process of chemical weapons elimination and control, it is hard to say that this very organization has made an important contribution to peace. It is obvious that had it not been for the agreement between Russia and the US and subsequent pressure on Damascus, the OPCW would not be able to do anything with Syria’s weapons, and there would be no contribution to peace to discuss.

The political compound has always been present in the committee’s decision on the Nobel Peace Prize. It is too closely related to real life. But it has become particularly noticeable in the past few years.

The experts have predicted that the award could be given to the 16-year-old Pakistani human rights activist Malala Yousafzai or the Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege, who specializes in helping victims of gang rape.

Yousafzai called the wrath of Islamists upon her with her struggle for women’s rights. The girl wrote a blog for the BBC online, in which she told about the life of women in Pakistan. At the beginning of October past year, Yousafzai was going home on a school bus, which was attacked by extremists. The girl received a grave head wound, she was taken to a military hospital in Peshawar in a critical state, and she survived. A day before the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the nominee, it became known that the European Parliament awarded Yousafzai with the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Doctor Denis Mukwege dedicated his life to helping women victims, who were raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo by soldiers and guerillas. In 1999, he participated in opening a hospital in Bukavu, which became a shelter for thousands of women. Last year, there was an attempt at Mukwege, and he had to flee to Europe.

Experts also put the Chinese dissident Hu Jia on the list of favorites. He started off as an environmental protection activist, worked on the AIDS problem, and then transferred to social and political sphere. In April 2008, Hu Jia was sentenced to 31.5 years of imprisonment, but was released in 2011.

Some highly evaluated the chances of WikiLeaks informant Bradley Manning, who asked to be known as woman Chelsea Manning, to win the 2013 Peace Prize. But putting Manning on the list of favorites may be considered speculation to get public attention.

Russia counted very much on one of their three nominees becoming a laureate: the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alekseeva, the human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina, or the executive director of the Association GOLOS Lilia Shibanova.

Let us note that at some point, an opinion to nominate Putin for solving the Syrian chemical weapons issue was voiced. However, it probably was an attempt to win the Russian president’s favor, since the list of nominees was established back in February, long before Putin’s contribution to the cause of peace.

Let us go back to the politics. Its influence on the Nobel Committee leads to the situation when the prize is increasingly more often awarded to organizations, rather than individuals. Besides, their contribution to the consolidation of peace is not always obvious. Moreover, the prize is given not for what has been already done, but rather in advance. This directly contradicts the spirit of Nobel awards and the prize founder’s will. It would be bizarre if scientists were awarded not for specific achievements tested in practice, but for possible results.

In this sense, comparison with the Nobel Prize in physics is interesting. This year, the prize in physics was given to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert. In his fundamental articles written in 1964, the first one foresaw the existence of a special elementary particle, which was later called Higgs boson. And only after the particle’s existence was proven by means of the Large Hadron Collider, the scientists received their award.

Syria’s chemical weapons are not yet destroyed, and it is not quite clear how this process will go, but the prize is already awarded. This hardly contributes to the authority of this prestigious international award.

Russian political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky was rather harsh in his commentary: “The Nobel Peace Prize is degrading, and the decisions are dictated by political correctness rather than specific contributions to peace.”

It remains to be seen whether this is true, but the signs of this process are obvious.