The selection of Zelenskyi as a Nobel Peace Prize winner would raise criticism of the Nobel Committee, long-time peace activist Laura Lodenius estimates.
Several betting offices have raised the President of Ukraine to Volodymyr Zelensky early favorites on the list of Nobel Peace Prize candidates. The recipient of this year’s peace prize will be announced in Oslo on Friday.
Zelenskyi covers, for example, a Russian opposition politician sitting in prison with lists To Alexei Navalnyan exiled Belarusian opposition politician Svjatlana Tsihanouskayan and a climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Can the president of a warring country be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?
We asked the executive director of the Peace League about it From Laura Lodenius. Lodenius has followed the Nobel Prize debate for decades.
– The Nobel committee can give the prize to almost anyone, but I think awarding Zelensky would be quite a strange message, says Lodenius.
Could be a thorn in the side of the Nobel Committee for Russia
He points out that the committee’s line is so uneven that it is difficult to make reliable predictions.
The history of the Peace Prize can also provide grounds for awarding Zelenskyi.
For example, the award has been given in advance to a person who is hoped to make peace somewhere. In addition, it has been awarded as a statesman’s award as a thank you for an impressive career.
Sometimes the peace prize has been awarded to a dissident as a nod to an authoritarian regime.
Zelenskyi’s election could therefore be either a wish from the committee for Zelenskyi’s role in the peace process, a kind of leadership award, or a thorn in Russia’s direction.
According to Lodenius, the peace movement rejects such justifications for awarding the peace prize.
– The Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded for grassroots peace building, says Lodenius.
It would also be hoped that the award would increase the resources of peace work. In other words, the prize money would be used for peace work.
– Zelenskyi deserves to be honored and awarded in many sectors, but at least this year I would not consider the peace prize a natural option.
No support for not awarding the award
According to Lodenius, several peace organizations have criticized the Nobel Committee in recent years for the fact that the peace prize has become too “a highbrow attention-grabbing prize”.
In the 21st century, a lot of criticism aroused, among others, the president of the United States Barack Obama’s received the Peace Prize in 2009, just nine months after taking office. Even the former secretary of the Nobel Committee Geir Lundestad called Obama’s election later as a mistake. Despite his promises, Obama did not, for example, close the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba.
If Zelenskyi is chosen as the Nobel Peace Prize, the criticism of the peace movement would certainly intensify again, Lodenius estimates.
– But I don’t think that this choice would weaken the value of the award. After all, awards that have attracted a lot of criticism have been awarded before, but then the next year has come again.
Swedish researcher of international politics Peter Wallensteen said last week in an interview with news agency AFPthat the peace prize should not be awarded this year.
The last time this was done was in 1972 due to the Vietnam War.
According to Laura Lodenius, the proposal stems from the notion that Europe is the center of the world.
– We think in Europe that the whole world has been revolutionized by the war in Ukraine. But there have been wars in all these years that the prize has been awarded. From a global perspective, this year is not so different that the award should not be awarded right now, says Lodenius.