On Friday, the same alarm bells should ring as every other year: Now make sure that the peace prize does not have any unwelcome consequences. There is a long list of award ceremonies that the Norwegian Storting's Nobel Committee must have wished were undone.
From the mixed crowd of 143 peace prize winners, one can choose a few debatable ones:
Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State, who in 1973 had to share the award with North Vietnam's chief negotiator, in the midst of an ongoing war. In addition, Kissinger was accused of war crimes in Vietnam, Cambodia and Chile.
Aung San Suu Kyi who was under house arrest in Myanmar and received the Peace Prize in 1991 for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights. A few decades later - when she led the government - she was accused of human rights violations in connection with the persecution of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.
Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia and 2019 laureate, lost the halo even faster. He was praised for ending the war against Eritrea. Two years later, his reputation was tarnished by a violent civil war in the province of Tigray. And now a major war between Ethiopia and Eritrea is about to become a reality again.
Barack Obama was already questioned when he received the Peace Prize in 2009. For the prize committee, it was not so cheerful when the US president said in his speech that wars may be necessary: "A non-violent movement would not have been able to stop Hitler's armies."
Originally, the Peace Prize was a reward for the promotion of peace and disarmament. But soon it took on a broader meaning: human rights and democracy. Good examples exist: Polish trade union leader Lech Walesa (1983), Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi (2003), Russian civil rights activist Andrey Sakharov (1975) and Ales Byalyatski, released political prisoner in Belarus (2022).
It was in that spirit that the Norwegian committee last year awarded the peace prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. She was a democracy fighter in dictatorial Venezuela. But Machado clearly wanted to stay on good terms with the embattled Trump, so she declared that she "dedicated" the award to Trump and that she welcomed the US threat to topple Nicolás Maduro's regime by force.
It looked like she was counting on Trump to install her as Venezuela's new leader.
It must have made the Nobel committee blush at the justification for Machado's prize: "At a time when democracy is threatened, it is more important than ever to award the prize to a brave person who fights for human rights, against an authoritarian regime and for peace".
Three weeks later, on January 3, 2026, Donald Trump ordered the CIA and the military to kidnap President Maduro and take him to a prison in the United States. But Trump did not give power to Machado. He let Maduro's vice-president Delcy Rodríguez take over the role of US governor in Venezuela.
It didn't help that Machado visited the White House and presented his Nobel medal to Trump. She still has not received US permission to return home to Venezuela.
Last year's fiasco makes it more likely that the Peace Prize this year will not be awarded to someone who provokes greater controversy. If the betting companies are to be believed, no politician or state leader is top rated either. On several sites, the Emergency Response Rooms (ERR) in Sudan are at the top, along with organizations such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and Save the Children.
A charity is a safe choice that does not lead to arguments. If it turns out to be ERR, a grassroots movement that has played an important role in the aid efforts in civil war Sudan, the light will also be put on the world's worst refugee and famine crisis, where over 20 million people are suffering from acute famine.
Two high odds are the UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
The ICJ has ruled that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and is investigating whether Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
The ICC has issued arrest warrants for suspected war crimes against Vladimir Putin (in Ukraine) and Benjamin Netanyahu (in Gaza). The US does not recognize the ICC and is trying to undermine the court, which it accuses of threatening US sovereignty. The US has targeted judges at the ICC with punitive sanctions and has pressured several NATO countries to leave the ICC.
A more charged choice than the ICC is hard to imagine. In that case, it would be Trump, who was blown away at last year's peace prize. But with the fact that the American president started a major war against Iran at the beginning of the year, it is hardly his name that the Norwegian Nobel Committee will read out on Friday at 11 o'clock.
Read more:
Nobel Prize for Venezuelan struggle for democracy
