Peace, Then Prize

With another year comes another round of Nobel Prizes. But there seems to be a perennial outlier in the family of awards. While prizes such as Physics and Literature are awarded to luminaries with substantive and thoroughly scrutinized contributions, the Nobel Peace Prize is consistently awarded before the fact. It is often given to promote political causes that are popular at the time; it rewards short-term fame, not long-term merit. This practice degrades the credibility of this important award in the public eye.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the group tasked with eliminating the use of chemical weapons in Syria, won this year’s Peace Prize, an obvious, positive response to its current high-profile mission. Yet although the group’s work may be important, it has not yet been accomplished, let alone shown to contribute to lasting international peace. In fact, within Syria itself, the al-Assad government has publicly praised the Peace award choice while the Syrian opposition has sharply criticized it for sugarcoating the reality of al-Assad’s extensive atrocities using conventional weapons. Indeed, it is unclear that the removal of chemical weapons will improve peace in Syria in any meaningful way.

Furthermore, some Peace recipients had not yet even made concrete progress toward the achievements for which they were recognized.  Barack Obama famously won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Unfortunately, the Norwegian Nobel Committee naively conflated Obama’s lofty rhetoric with results—messages of “hope” and “change,” while appealing, do not constitute any actual work towards peace.

Certainly, the Committee may have thought that awarding Obama the prize would further the vision of international cooperation that Obama often touted on the campaign trail. Ironically, though, in the few years since Obama won the prize, his administration has staunchly defended, among other controversial policies, the use of deadly drone strikes in other countries and the widespread surveillance of millions of Americans in the name of national security. Obama’s presidency if anything has been marked by conflict with the international community, not peace. The Peace Prize seems meaningless when it is handed out before any actual accomplishments. It seems even ridiculous when its recipients’ actions are contrary to the spirit of the award.

Instead, if the Norwegian Nobel Committee wants to maintain the reputation of the Peace Prize, it should recognize those whose work has had meaningful, lasting impact; that is, it is should adopt the standard that the other awards already follow. Of course, promoting fashionable causes and celebrities might draw attention to those issues and convey the Committee’s support. Too often, though, this motivation supersedes the emphasis on real achievements.

Ultimately, the value of the Peace Prize depends on the value of the “peace” it recognizes—if it continues to be awarded prematurely, before that “peace” is realized, the Peace Prize risks falling into irrelevancy.