Al Jazeera reports: “Speculation is growing about Friday’s big announcement. Pope Francis, Germany’s chancellor, U.S. Secretary of State, and Iran’s foreign minister are a few of the names being mentioned for this year’s peace prize. But is the Nobel still credible? Is the criteria fair and did previous winners deserve it?” The segment features a debate which includes Fredrik Heffermehl, a leading critic of the Norwegian trustees of the Nobel Peace Prize. [See video on YouTube — not available in the U.S. without using a work-around, like unblockyoutube.co.uk.]

FREDRIK HEFFERMEHL, fredpax at online.no
Author of The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted, Heffermehl said today: “When Alfred Nobel said in his will that his prize should benefit the ‘champions of peace,’ he meant the movement and the persons who work for a demilitarized world, for law to replace power in international politics, and for all nations to commit to cooperating on the elimination of all weapons instead of competing for military superiority.

“The Norwegian trustees have disconnected the prize entirely from Nobel´s visionary idea of peacemaking and are spreading ‘Nobel’ honor in all directions. The rule on full secrecy for 50 years around the selection process makes it possible for them to get away with it, but their brazen neglect of Nobel can no longer be tolerated.”

See statement signed by Heffermehl as well as Nobel laureates Mairead Maguire, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Adolfo Perez Esquivel after the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012: “The 2012 Peace Prize Is Unlawful.” Heffermehl is on the board of Nobel Peace Prize Watch, which is a party to a lawsuit recently filed about the 2012 Peace Prize.

See full text of Nobel’s will, which calls for the Peace Prize to be awarded to those who have done the most “…for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Heffermehl added: “Everyone is entitled to learn about the causes and kinds of people Nobel intended to support and we at Nobel Peace Prize Watch therefore have put a major effort into finding as many valid nominations for 2015 as we could and publish them here.”