According to the will of Alfred Nobel the prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, the Nobel Peace Prize may be awarded to persons or organizations that are in the process of resolving an issue, rather than upon the resolution of the issue. In this way, the Nobel Peace Prize differs from all the other Nobel prizes. Since the prize can be given to individuals involved in ongoing peace processes, some of the awards now appear, with hindsight, questionable, particularly when those processes failed to bear lasting fruit. For example, the awards given to Theodore Roosevelt, Le Duc Tho, and Henry Kissinger were particularly controversial and criticized; the latter prompted two dissenting committee members to resign [1]. The Nobel Committee has also received criticism from right-wing groups who see their decisions as guided by an apparent left-wing bias. They specially condemn the prize being given to people like Yasser Arafat, whom they view as a supporter of terrorism.
| Year
| Individual or Organization
| Notes
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| 1901Events January 1 World celebrates what is regarded as the start of the new century. Zero-ists' argument that new century should be celebrated in 1900 rejected worldwide). January 1 The six colonies that make up Australia are federated as under an act of t
| Jean Henri Dunant (Switzerland)
| founder of the Red CrossThe terms Red Cross and Red Crescent are often used as short names for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, or its two leading international organs, the ICRC and the IFRCS. This page is about the symbol itself, see respective articles fo and initiator of the Geneva Convention.
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| Frédéric PassyFrederic Passy ( May 20, 1822 June 12, 1912) was a French economist and advocate of international arbitration. He was the joint winner (with Henry Dunant) of the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. Reference Passy, Frederic Passy, Frederic Passy, Frederic. (France)
| founder and president of the Société Française pour l'arbitrage entre nations .
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| 1902
| Élie Ducommun (Switzerland) and Charles Albert Gobat
| honorary secretaries of the Permanent International Peace Bureau in Berne.
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| 1903
| Sir William Randal Cremer (UK)
| secretary of the International Arbitration League .
|
| 1904
| Institut de droit international (Gent, Belgium).
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| 1905
| Bertha Sophie Felicitas Baronin von Suttner, née Countess Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau (Austria)
| writer, honorary president of the Permanent International Peace Bureau .
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| 1906
| Theodore Roosevelt (USA)
| president of the United States, for drawing up the peace treaty in the Russo-Japanese War.
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| 1907
| Ernesto Teodoro Moneta (Italy)
| president of the Lombard League of Peace .
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| Louis Renault (France)
| professor of International Law.
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| 1908
| Klas Pontus Arnoldson (Sweden)
| founder of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration League .
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| Fredrik Bajer (Denmark)
| honorary president of the Permanent International Peace Bureau .
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| 1909
| Auguste Marie Francois Beernaert (Belgium)
| member of the Cour Internationale d'Arbitrage .
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| Paul-Henri-Benjamin d'Estournelles de Constant (France)
| founder and president of the French parliamentary group for international arbitration. Founder of the Comité de défense des intérets nationaux et de conciliation internationale
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