OSLO, Oct 1 (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump will not win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize as he wages war with Iran, but his influence will still be felt by the awarding body that picks the laureate, according to experts.
Last year’s award, to Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado, was unique in the prize’s 125-year history, coming amid repeated lobbying by Trump to get the award. Weeks later, Machado gave her gold Nobel medal to Trump, in a bid to win support for her efforts for a democratic Venezuela.
This year, the five-strong body will be mindful of picking someone who can withstand pressure from Trump, according to Haakon Gjerloew, acting director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
“I think last year’s events around the Nobel Peace Prize, Maria Corina Machado giving it to Trump afterwards, will affect some of the considerations that they make,” he told Reuters.
“One worry the committee might have is whether awarding it to someone could put them under pressure from Donald Trump … I think the committee will consider whether the award does more harm than good.”
That could mean an award to Pope Leo, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice or Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, experts say. The announcement is on October 9.
Leo, the first US-born pope, has said he would continue to speak out against war, after the president called him “weak” for criticising the US conflict with Iran.
The Pope’s encyclical on AI, his advocacy for dialogue and the peaceful resolution of conflicts, his calls for respect for migrants and his humanitarian work could justify a prize.
“The Pope stands (for) more than just as a religious figure. He has emerged as a leading thought leader,” Karim Haggag, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told Reuters.
Italy’s Albanese, meanwhile, has been under fire from the US and Israel for her criticism of Israel’s conduct of its war against Hamas in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank.
SAFE CHOICE INSTEAD?
To be sure, last year’s shock events could have the opposite effect on the committee: go for a safe, uncontroversial choice less likely to antagonise Trump, who blamed Norway, where the award is decided, for not giving him the accolade last time.
That could mean recognising Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms, a Sudanese network of community groups providing aid during the civil war, or non-governmental group Save the Children for helping children in conflicts.
But the committee is also under scrutiny to address Trump’s challenges to the international order the committee cherishes, said Oeivind Stenersen, a historian who has written about the Nobel Peace Prize.
“They have a certain pressure … to be tough against Trump,” he told Reuters. “In this serious international situation, this year calls for a Peace Prize in defence of liberal democracy, international law and human rights.”
This could mean honouring the ICC at a time when Washington is preparing sweeping sanctions against the global tribunal, according to sources, while an award to the ICJ would support respecting the sovereignty of nation-states and resolving disputes peacefully.
Trump has reportedly been nominated by the leaders of Cambodia, Israel and Pakistan, but his chances were “quite low”, according to Gjerloew.
Trump’s pressure on the Norwegian Nobel Committee has stunned many, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, a Filipino and American journalist, who said she watched last year with “horror”.
“Bullies don’t run the world,” she told Reuters during a visit to Oslo in September. “There are standards we live by. Might doesn’t make it right.”
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, additional reporting by Tom Little in Stockholm; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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