Which individuals and organizations are authorised to submit Nobel Peace Prize nominations and how has that list changed over time?
Executive summary
The right to submit nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize belongs not to the public at large but to a defined list of "qualified nominators" set out in the statutes of the Nobel Foundation — a mix of legislators, judges of international courts, senior academics in specific fields, leaders of peace and foreign‑policy institutes, past laureates, and certain institutional office‑holders [1] [2] [3]. The nomination system has remained governed by these statutory categories for decades, while administrative practices — such as sending nomination forms to roughly 3,000 selected individuals, the 31 January deadline, and a strict 50‑year secrecy rule — have shaped how nominations are collected and publicly perceived [4] [5] [1].
1. Who the statutes explicitly empower to nominate
The Nobel Foundation’s statutes enumerate categories of persons and offices authorised to submit valid nominations: members of national assemblies and governments, members of the Inter‑Parliamentary Union, judges and members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Court of Justice, university rectors and professors in history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology and religion, directors of peace research and foreign policy institutes, previous Nobel Peace Prize laureates, board members of organisations that received the prize, and current or former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and its advisers [1] [2] [3].
2. Administrative practices that operationalise the right to nominate
In practice the Norwegian Nobel Committee sends nomination forms and invitations to a broad roster of about 3,000 individuals—generally prominent academics, past laureates, and relevant governmental and institutional figures—each September before the award year, and sets a firm submission deadline of 31 January [4] [5]. The committee then conducts an eight‑month review process, shortlisting and vetting candidates through advisers and external experts before announcing winners in October [6].
3. Eligibility of nominees vs eligibility of nominators
While the list of eligible nominators is restricted and specified in the statutes, eligibility for nomination is wide: “all living persons and active organisations or institutions” may be candidates, but their candidacy is only valid if put forward by someone authorised to nominate [7]. The committee itself may also propose candidates at an early meeting, but self‑nomination is not accepted [8] [3].
4. How secrecy and self‑reporting shape public perceptions
A statutory 50‑year embargo prevents the committee from disclosing names of nominators and nominees, which means much public knowledge about who has been nominated comes from nominators or nominees themselves or media leaks; the practice of self‑reporting and occasional public announcements by nominators explains why some candidacies are visible despite the formal secrecy [1] [9] [10]. That opacity has encouraged both speculative media lists and occasional misuse of “nominee” status as a form of publicity, since being named does not equate to endorsement by the committee [10] [7].
5. How the list has (and has not) changed over time — limits of the record
Primary sources here show continuity: the statutes’ categories form the enduring legal basis for who may nominate, and official descriptions from the Nobel institutions reiterate largely the same professional categories over recent decades [1] [2] [3]. Secondary reporting and institutional histories note that the committee early on decided organisations could be awarded the Peace Prize — which implicitly widened attention to organisations as nominees and to boards of such organisations as potential nominators — but the sources provided do not supply a detailed timeline of statutory amendments or exact historical expansions of the nominator list [11] [12]. Where the documentary record is silent in these sources, it is not possible to assert precise historical changes to the statutes; what can be said with confidence is that nomination rights are set by the statutes and that administrative practice (who receives forms, deadlines, secrecy) has crystallised into the present system [4] [6].
6. Practical consequences and controversies
The broad but defined pool of nominators — thousands of academics, parliamentarians, former laureates and institutional leaders — produces annual nomination lists numbering in the hundreds and ensures geographic and disciplinary variety, yet the secrecy and the ability of nominators to publicise their own submissions have occasionally fueled controversy and misunderstanding about what a nomination means, and about the committee’s decision process [7] [10] [9]. The statutes, administrative customs, and the public relations choices of nominators together shape both who gets to propose candidates and how those proposals are perceived.