What is the Nobel Committee’s official process for nominating and selecting Peace Prize laureates?
Executive summary
The Nobel Peace Prize nomination and selection process is a tightly scheduled, multi-stage system run by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament (Storting), in which eligible nominators submit candidates by January 31, the Committee vets and investigates the field through summer, and then decides—seeking consensus but able to use a majority vote—by early October for the public announcement and a December 10 ceremony [1] [2] [3] [4]. The process is cloaked in long-term confidentiality: nomination records are sealed for fifty years [1].
1. Who controls the prize and how the Committee is constituted
Alfred Nobel’s will delegated the Peace Prize uniquely to Norway; the Norwegian Nobel Committee of five persons elected by the Storting is the official decision‑making body for the Peace Prize, with members appointed to six‑year terms and selected so their composition "as far as possible" reflects parliamentary party strength—while current government ministers are barred from serving following reforms in the 1930s [5] [6].
2. Who can nominate and how nominations arrive
Nominations are only valid if submitted by people or institutions on the authorised list—university rectors and certain professors, members of national assemblies, past laureates, leaders of peace research institutes, members of international courts, and similar categories—and are typically submitted via an online form that opens mid‑October and closes on January 31; anyone meeting those nominator criteria may propose any living person or active organization as candidate [4] [2] [7].
3. What happens after the deadline: sorting, validation and additions
After January 31 the secretariat sorts and validates nominations and hands valid nominations to the Committee in mid‑February; Committee members may add further names during their first meeting after the nomination period closes, but there is no vetting before the deadline, meaning the Committee must work from a raw, unfiltered list of submissions [3] [2].
4. Investigation, external advice and internal review
The Committee conducts its deliberations at the Nobel Institute and routinely seeks additional information and expert reports—often international—on candidates; advisers are asked to prepare written reports and the Committee’s secretary (the Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute) supports the process, with the Committee working toward a decision late in the summer or at its last meeting before the announcement [6] [1] [3].
5. Decision rules, secrecy and announcement
Although the Committee strives for unanimity, a simple majority is sufficient to make the decision and that decision is final and without appeal; the laureate are announced on the Friday of the first full week of October and receive the prize at the Oslo City Hall on December 10 [3] [4].
6. Transparency limits and archival rules
Nomination records and related committee archives remain closed to the public for fifty years, a rule that limits contemporaneous external scrutiny of how specific nominations and votes were handled and contributes to periodic criticism about opacity and possible politicization [1].
7. Controversies, politics and third‑party commentary
The system’s political origins and the Committee’s composition have long invited accusations of political influence and controversy over prize choices—issues repeatedly noted by scholars and commentators—and outside lists and predictions (for example from PRIO) draw public interest even while those analysts have no formal role or privileged access to the Committee’s deliberations [6] [8] [9].
8. Limits of available reporting and what remains unknown
Public sources outline the rules, calendar and institutional roles clearly, but they cannot reveal internal deliberations, vote counts or the detailed rationale behind late decisions because the Committee’s files are confidential for decades; therefore any claim about internal motives or vote dynamics beyond the published rules rests on later archival research or testimonials after records are opened [1] [3].