How has the Norwegian Nobel Committee justified awarding the Peace Prize to organisations rather than individuals in controversial cases?

1. Why an organisation is a legitimate laureate under Nobel’s will

Alfred Nobel’s text explicitly contemplates both persons and organisations as potential laureates, obligating the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award “the person or organisation that has conferred the greatest benefit to humankind in the field of peace” and to weigh the kinds of pursuits spelled out in the will when choosing recipients ^{[1] [2]}. The Committee repeatedly points to that language as its core legal and moral authority for naming institutions—from UN agencies to NGOs—rather than restricting the prize to individuals alone ^{[1] [5]}.

2. The Committee’s contextual reading: fitting the will to modern problems

Committee officials and historians emphasise that the shortlist and final choice must be “placed in the current context,” meaning the body interprets Nobel’s 1895 formula through contemporary challenges such as humanitarian coordination, multilateral peacebuilding, or global scientific mobilization ^[3]. Awards to bodies like the United Nations, UNHCR, IPCC and the World Food Programme are defended on the grounds that they represent organised cooperation or knowledge crucial to peace in the present era—an interpretation the Committee has used repeatedly in justifying organisational laureates ^[5].

3. Collective action, systemic problems and the logic for organisations

The Committee’s practical justification rests on the idea that some threats to peace—refugee crises, hunger used as a weapon, climate-driven instability—are inherently collective and institutional in nature, and that organisations both enact and symbolise coordinated responses that individual laureates cannot represent alone ^[5]. By awarding organisations, the Nobel Committee signals that institutional capacity and multilateral frameworks are themselves peace-making forces worthy of recognition under Nobel’s criteria ^{[5] [1]}.

4. Precedents, controversies and institutional independence

Historical precedent matters: the Committee has long chosen institutions, and has defended those choices as consistent with the will while stressing its independence from the Norwegian government in doing so—a point emphasised after diplomatic rows such as China’s reaction to the 2010 prize and earlier disputes that led to changes in Committee composition rules ^{[3] [6]}. The Committee also stresses that its decisions are final and that it does not retract prizes or comment on laureates’ later actions, which it argues preserves the integrity of the award even if laureates later court controversy ^{[7] [2]}.

5. Criticisms: politics, transparency and what an organisational prize obscures

Critics argue the Committee’s organisational awards can be political or appear so, and that the Committee’s membership and deliberative opacity have long invited scepticism about motives and balance—concerns raised in Norwegian press and scholarship advocating clearer criteria and broader professional backgrounds for committee members ^[4]. Others warn that awarding institutions can diffuse responsibility, making it harder to hold individuals to account for later decisions, a tension the Committee accepts but says lies outside its remit because the prize reflects actions “by the time that the committee’s decision is taken” ^{[4] [7]}.

6. Bottom line: law, context and contested symbolism

In sum, the Committee justifies awarding organisations on three connected grounds grounded in source material and practice: the will’s explicit allowance for organisations, a contextual interpretation that sees institutions as apt mediators of contemporary peace work, and precedent showing the prize’s role in promoting organised cooperation—yet those choices remain politically and symbolically contested, with critics calling for more transparency and clearer, less politicised standards ^{[1] [3] [4]}.