• The Russian NGO Memorial, the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties and the Belarusian opponent Ales Bialiatski received this Friday the Nobel Peace Prize 2022.

  • While the war in Ukraine is still raging, the choice of three laureates opposed to the actions of Vladimir Putin and his allies may seem contrary to the objective of "bringing people together", choosing a very clear side.

  • What are the reasons for this choice?

    Can we really award a prize for peace in the midst of war?

    Does the Nobel Peace Prize still have a meaning?

    20 Minutes

    takes stock.

They are three this year, including two institutions.

The Russian NGO Memorial, the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties and the Belarusian opponent Ales Bialiatski received the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded by the eponymous Norwegian committee since 1901. Names quite distant from the two "rockstars" on the list of candidates, Volodymyr Zelensky and Greta Thunberg, but a choice ultimately well marked by the news of the war in Ukraine.

How important is this choice?

What is the Nobel Peace Prize still for?

20 Minutes

takes stock.

How and why is the Nobel Peace Prize awarded?

Since 1901, the prize rewards "the personality or the community having contributed the most or the best to the bringing together of peoples, to the suppression or the reduction of the standing armies, to the meeting and the propagation of the progress for peace", according to the terms of Alfred Nobel's will.

“The idea is to put the importance of peace between nations at the center of the debate,” points out Victoria Fontan, university professor in peacebuilding studies at the American University of Afghanistan.

Awarded each year, it “intervenes on the spot in the news”, explains Mathilde Leloup, lecturer in political science at the University of Paris-8 and researcher at CRESPPA-LabToP.

The war in Ukraine and global warming being the two transversal subjects of the year, the list was strongly affected.

It was ultimately the first theme that was chosen: "in this context, the reward for the two NGOs sounds like support for the defense of human rights" in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, she believes. .

As for Ales Bialatsky, a long-time political opponent of President Lukashenko, “it is a way of rewarding his action for years for democracy against the Lukashenko regime”.

Does awarding the Nobel Prize in wartime make sense?

By rewarding 'warmongers' and 'anti-Russians', in the context of the war, the committee has taken a very clear side which itself is not in favor of peace, criticizes Victoria Fontana.

“The Nobel Prize has become wokism before its time”, representing “a moral and military conformism”, “the instrument of certain policies which have nothing to do with peace”, she denounces.

“Not sure that changes the game,” admits Mathilde Leloup, more measured.

"We must not underestimate the strength of the symbol in international politics", but that "will not bend Putin or Lukashenko", she tempers.



This is not the first time that the price has been criticized.

"There were petitions to withdraw it from Aung San Suu Kyi", rewarded in 1991 but who "refused to recognize the massacre of the Rohingya", recalls Mathilde Leloup.

It was also awarded to Barack Obama in 2009, barely a year after his election.

“Too early” for the teacher at Paris-8, especially since the Democratic president “maintained the Guantanamo camp” and continued the war in Afghanistan.

During the two world wars, the prize had only been awarded twice, in 1917 and 1944, each time to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

What future for the Nobel Peace Prize?

If it was “a very good idea at the start”, when it was created in 1901, the Nobel Peace Prize “became an empty shell”, believes Victoria Fontan.

“What did the people from the academy go through on the pitch?

“, she asks.

She invites to "open a public debate to question the legitimacy" of the prize, and calls on "more pacifist groups" to seize it.

“It is a mistake to award it for life”, adds Mathilde Leloup, who would like to see it conditioned to “an objective of continuing to work for the maintenance of peace”.

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  • War in Ukraine

  • Russia

  • World

  • Nobel Prize of Peace

  • barack obama

  • Aung san suu kyi