Nobel Peace Prize 2023: When statutes do not apply.

It is impossible not to feel great sympathy for Narges Mohammadi and admire the courage and sacrifice of the newest Nobel Peace Laureate. But in 2023, once again, the prize landed far away from what Alfred Nobel had in mind when writing his will, which is the foundation for the statutes and awarding the prize. This year's deviation once again is something that most people have come to believe is acceptable. However, the award should be based on Nobel's will, which the Norwegian Nobel Committee cannot freely change however popular its awards may be. But the committee is legally obliged to follow the will and statutes.

As a lawyer, the committee chair, Berit Reiss-Andersen, knows this well. No lawyer who is familiar with the contemporary ideas and the words Nobel used in the will, and the background debates he had, will be able to support Reiss-Andersen's claim that the committee is respecting Nobel's will. I find that the award policy is a direct betrayal of Nobel's will. His main idea was that the prize should contribute to demilitarisation and global rule of law, what he called the 'brotherhood of nations'. Nothing could mean more for security, climate, human rights, and prosperous development - indeed, our chance of survival.

In order to award the Nobel Prize, the very first thing the Norwegian trustees should have done in 1897 was to study the relevant evidence thoroughly and interpret what Nobel's own intention was. Instead, they seem to have become more interested in how the prize could serve their own interests, and those of Norway, as they saw it.

I have written several books about these questions, and in an upcoming book, The Real Nobel Peace Prize, I analyse them in further detail. Alfred Nobel's three key aspects were that the prize should contribute to: (1) the community of nations, (2) the abolition of standing armies, and (3) the holding of peace congresses. These terms were never professionally interpreted, not even when the Swedish authorities demanded in a review of the FoundationA's practice in 2009, (for fear that 'otherwise compliance with the testament will fail over time'). This will be thoroughly substantiated in my forthcoming book where I have examined the nominations for the prize, and undug the peace movements, groups and individuals that were best suited to the prize over all its 120 years of existence. In my examination of the internal archives of the first 70 years of Nobel Committee's work, from the start in...