Nobel Peace Prize Criticism
See also: Nobel Prize controversiesSince August 2007 Heffermehl has marked himself as a staunch critic of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which, according to Heffermehl, has failed to comply with the will of Alfred Nobel, thereby making several awards—45% of the awards after 1945—juridically illegal. Among the laureates perceived by Heffermehl as illegal are the more controversial laureates, such as Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (1973) and Arafat, Peres and Rabin (1994), but also less controversial ones such as Mother Teresa (1979) and Elie Wiesel (1986). Although many laureates have done "commendable work", Heffermehl stresses that this is not good enough to receive a prize whose criteria explicitly pertain to disarmament and peace work.
His views were first explained in-depth in the 2008 book Nobels vilje (English: "Nobel's Will"). Since 1948, the selection of members of the Nobel Committee has been delegated from the Parliament of Norway (against what Nobel prescribed) to the major political parties. According to Heffermehl, the Norwegian political parties have used committee membership as an award to over-the-hill politicians in recognition of their service, rather than picking non-partisan people with an actual background in peace activism. Furthermore, Heffermehl, being an opponent of the Norwegian membership in NATO, finds that the broad pro-NATO consensus among Norwegian political parties has skewed the Nobel Peace Prize in a similar direction. This, says Heffermehl, runs contrary to Alfred Nobel's wishes to abandon military institutions.
In an interview with Ny Tid he suggested that the current Committee members be replaced with people such as Jan Egeland, Ingrid Fiskaa, Jostein Gaarder and Sverre Lodgaard. Other suggestions from Heffermehl include Gunnar Garbo, Ingrid Eide, Erik Dammann, Torild Skard, Reiulf Steen, Johan Galtung and Berit Ås. In Nobels vilje, Heffermehl regrets that Eide was not hired as Nobel Committee secretary when she actually applied for that position in 1990.
Read more about this topic: Fredrik Heffermehl
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