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Oslo (AFP)
The Nobel Peace Prize, the highlight of the annual awards week, will be announced on Friday, and press freedom watchdogs Greta Thunberg and the World Health Organization will be considered potential laureates in an open field. .
The chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, will reveal the 2020 winner (s) at 11:00 am (0900 GMT) at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, where restrictions on the coronavirus will drastically reduce the regular turnout of journalists.
This year, 318 nominees were known to be considered: 211 individuals and 107 organizations.
But the names on the list are kept secret for 50 years, making predictions difficult.
“There are good reasons for an award in the field of journalism,” said Sverre Lodgaard, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
“For decision makers to intervene in a conflict, they must be able to construct an opinion based on truthful information provided by the media,” he explained.
Since the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, the Peace Prize has never awarded work in the field of freedom of information.
But the time may have come, experts say, citing Reporters Without Borders (known by its French acronym RSF) and the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as potential winners.
Climate activists could get the nod, too, 13 years after the UN’s climate science advisory panel, the IPCC, and former US Vice President Al Gore won.
In such a case, the Swedish teenage activist Thunberg could be honored, either alone, with other activists or with her “Fridays for Future” movement.
The four women crowned so far this year with a Nobel is more than usual, approaching the record of five women winners of 2009.
On Thursday, American poet Louise Gluck won the literature award, Emmanuelle Charpentier from France and Jennifer Doudna from the United States shared the chemistry award on Wednesday, and Andrea Ghez from the United States shared the physics award with two male colleagues on Tuesday.
Will Thunberg join this prestigious club?
With her “School Strike for Climate”, the 17-year-old has raised public awareness about the dangers of global warming and mobilized millions of young people around the planet.
“Climate change is much more serious in the long term” than Covid-19, Nobel historian Asle Sveen told AFP.
She would be the second youngest Nobel laureate in history, just behind Pakistani activist Malala, and the eighteenth woman to win the Peace Prize.
– Nobel in the year of the pandemic –
As the world reels from the most serious pandemic in a century, the five-member Nobel committee may also choose to support multilateral efforts, as opposed to nationalist trends, to combat the virus.
In such a case, the World Health Organization (WHO) could take home the prestigious award, according to some observers, even though its response to the crisis has been criticized.
Last year, the award went to a more traditional laureate, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, for his efforts to end the 20-year post-war stalemate with Eritrea. His country is now facing inter-ethnic violence and police repression of anti-government protests.
Many other names of potential Nobel winners have also been circulating in Oslo, including Afghan peace negotiator and women’s rights activist Fawzia Koofi, the World Food Program (WFP), the UN and its Secretary General Antonio Guterres, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Sudan Revolution icon Alaa Salah.
Those eligible to nominate candidates for the award can also reveal their choice.
As a result, those believed to be on the list include the people of Hong Kong, Uighur intellectual Ilham Tohti, NATO, Brazilian indigenous leader and environmentalist Raoni Metuktire, and the trio of whistleblowers made up of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning.
Tens of thousands of people around the world (members of parliament and government ministers, some university professors, former laureates, etc.) can submit nominations to the Nobel committee.
The Nobel Prize, which consists of a gold medal, a diploma and a check for 10 million Swedish crowns ($ 1.1 million, 950,000 euros), will be awarded to the winner on December 10, the anniversary of the industrialist’s death. Swedish in 1896. and the philanthropist Alfred Nobel, who created the awards in his will.
Depending on the coronavirus restrictions in effect at that time, it will be awarded in person at a reduced ceremony in Oslo or remotely at an online ceremony.
© 2020 AFP
