There has been lots of chatter about this year's Nobel prizes, with some speculating that US President Donald Trump could receive the Peace award — including Mr Trump himself.
The possibility of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the US president has sparked debate on social media, putting a bigger spotlight on the award than in previous years.
As we wait for the announcement on Friday night, let's unpack how the awards work.
What are the Nobel prizes?
It's the umbrella term for a group of prestigious, multidisciplinary prizes established by wealthy Swedish chemist, inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.
Dr Nobel bequeathed his fortune to reward people who have "conferred the greatest benefit to humankind," with the first Nobel prizes awarded in 1901.
There are six categories:
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Physiology or medicine
- Literature
- Peace
- Economic sciences
When is the Nobel Peace Prize announced?
Tonight.
The recipient of the prize will be announced in Norway's capital, Oslo, at 11am on Friday, local time — which is 8pm AEDT.
However, the prizes won't be awarded until a ceremony on December 10, which marks the anniversary of Mr Nobel's death.
Five of the prizes are presented at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, but the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway, because of a stipulation in Mr Nobel's will.
What does the Nobel Peace Prize winner get?
The winner is presented with a medal, a diploma and 11 million Swedish krona ($1.8 million).
While all Nobel prize medals feature Dr Nobel, the peace medal is slightly different.
Designed by Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland, it shows Mr Nobel in a different pose.
What are the Nobel Peace Prize criteria?
There are no specific criteria for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Instead, nominees are judged according to stipulations listed in Dr Nobel's will, which state that the award should go to the person who has done:
"…the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
On its website, the committee says that, since World War II, the prize has been awarded in recognition of efforts in four key areas:
- Arms control and disarmament
- Peace negotiation
- Democracy and human rights
- Work aimed at creating a better-organised and more peaceful world
"The Nobel Peace Prize is a bit different [to the other prizes] because good deeds, being a good person, doing the right thing, is what we are looking for," Norwegian Nobel Committee member Asle Toje explained on the Nobel prize website in 2022.
"We're not looking for pound-by-pound intelligence."
Who decides the Nobel Peace Prize winner?
A committee of five people, elected by the Norwegian parliament, selects the recipient — another stipulation made in Mr Nobel's will.
However, sitting members of the Norwegian parliament aren't eligible to serve on the committee.
Still, Norwegian news site NewsInEnglish.no points out that three of the five current members are longtime politicians.
The current committee is:
- Jørgen Watne Frydnes: Known for his humanitarian work, including PEN International, an organisation dedicated to protecting freedom of expression
- Asle Toje: A foreign policy analyst with a doctorate in international relations
- Anne Enger: A former leader of Norway's Center Party who fronted a successful campaign against Norway joining the European Union in the 90s
- Kristin Clemet: A former education minister for Norway's Conservative Party
- Gry Larsen: A former Norwegian state secretary for the Labour Party
Kristian Berg Harpviken is listed as the committee's secretary. He participates in the deliberations but does not vote on the winner.
The committee is assisted by permanent advisers and other Norwegian or international experts, according to the Nobel prize website.
How do they decide the Nobel Peace Prize winner?
The committee reviews all the nominations and comes up with a shortlist.
"We do it pretty much the same way that you make a good sauce — you reduce and reduce and reduce," Mr Toje explained.
"The process starts by cutting out names that are spurious or that don't pique the interest of the members or that don't clearly coincide with the criteria in the testament.
"After a series of meetings, we get to the really exciting stuff, and that's when we're down to a dozen or so names."
Then, a group of advisers — selected "on the basis of their professional experience and academic expertise" — put together individual reports on the shortlisted candidates.
The committee members reconvene to review the reports, which can result in requests for further information on various candidates.
"When we get down to a dozen or so names, we reach out to the world because, whatever you're interested in, somebody somewhere has written a PhD about it," Mr Toje said.
"We try to get the best information possible — not because we're looking to confirm our biases or to look for black marks, but the committee really tends to prefer to know it all, the good and the bad, in order to make an informed decision."
They eventually narrow the list down to a "very small group," then hold a simple majority vote — a decision that cannot be appealed.
Who has been nominated?
There are 339 candidates nominated for the prize — 244 individuals and 95 organisations.
The committee keeps the full list of nominees secret for 50 years.
However, nominators are allowed to publicly reveal who they've put forward for the award.
So far, we know that jailed Hong Kong activist Chow Hang-tung and Canadian human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler are among the nominees.
Mr Trump has been touted as a possible contender for this year's prize, with a nomination from fellow Republican Claudia Tenney — reportedly submitted a day before the January 31 deadline — making him eligible.
The leaders of Cambodia, Israel and Pakistan have also said they nominated Mr Trump.
Who can nominate someone for a Nobel Peace Prize?
First off, you can't nominate yourself.
And not just anyone can nominate someone for a Nobel prize — nominators must meet certain criteria.
That includes being a member of a national government, a university professor, or a former prize winner, among other things.
Who won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize?
Last year's award went to an organisation called Nihon Hidankyo.
It was founded by the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and has long campaigned against the use of nuclear weapons.
The organisation was recognised for "its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again," according to the Nobel Prize website.
Past Nobel Peace Prize controversies
Nelson Mandela
While the Nobel Peace Prize has often been controversial, most people agreed in 1993 that Nelson Mandela winning the award was "self-evident", according to Geir Lundestad, the then-secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison, called for a peaceful transition to end apartheid in South Africa.
What was not self-evident was awarding the prize jointly with Frederik Willem de Klerk, the last white leader of South Africa, Lundestad said in his 2015 memoir.
Many said Mandela should have won alone, while others said he could not make peace without a counterpart, Lundestad recounted.
In the end, the prize was given to both to encourage the peaceful transition to a democratic South Africa — a process that was not yet complete at the time of the award.
Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho
Among the most controversial awards is the 1973 honouring of top US diplomat Henry Kissinger and North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho for reaching the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords, under which Washington completed a military withdrawal from South Vietnam.
The committee's decision shocked many at the time as Mr Kissinger played a major role in US military strategy in the final stages of the 1955-75 Vietnam War.
Le Duc Tho refused the prize on the grounds that peace had not yet been established. Two of the five committee members resigned in protest.
Mr Kissinger, while accepting the award, did not travel to Norway for the ceremony and later tried in vain to return the prize.
Internal documents released in 2023 showed the then-committee gave the award in the full knowledge that the Vietnam War was unlikely to end anytime soon.
Aung San Suu Kyi
One of the few women awarded the prize, Suu Kyi was one of a string of human rights campaigners to win in the 90s.
She was nominated for her non-violent struggle for democracy against the military dictatorship in Myanmar.
For years, she was hailed as one of the most worthy recipients of the award, but that changed in 2017 when, during her leadership of the civilian government, the Myanmar military carried out mass killings and gang rapes "with genocidal intent" against the Rohingya Muslim, according to a United Nations investigation.
In 2021, following a military coup, Suu Kyi was arrested again. The 80-year-old has been detained ever since and her health is ailing, according to her son.
Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi never won the peace prize.
He was on the committee's internal discussion list of candidates on five different occasions, with the body prepared to award it to him in 1948, the year he was assassinated, according to Lundestad.
The committee had the option to give him the prize posthumously, which was possible at the time but is no longer.
According to Lundestad, it may be because the committee did not want to offend Norway's close ally Britain, the former colonial power in India, or because the politics of Gandhi may have been perceived as too "foreign" or "anti-modern" by members of a Europe-centric committee.
The violence of India's partition could also have played a part, he said. At least 1 million people were killed, and 15 million were uprooted.
In any case, "among the omissions, Mahatma Gandhi stands in a class of his own", wrote Lundestad in his memoir. "It is, of course, extremely unfortunate that the 20th century's leading spokesman for non-violence never received the Nobel Peace Prize".
ABC with Reuters
