Why it is not so rare that Putin and Trump are candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize

Last Thursday, the Russian writer Sergei Komkov reported that Vladimir Putin is now officially a candidate for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination was sent on September 9 and, just a day later, it had already been accepted by the Nobel Foundation.

Putin's is added to the nomination in the same category as Donald Trump, which has been promoted by Norwegian MP Christian Tybring-Gjedde.

Almost anyone in the world is entitled to propose a Nobel Peace Prize, with the exception of the interested party.

That perhaps explains why Benito Mussolini, Stalin and even Adolf Hitler were candidates.

In the case of Putin, the reasons given for deserving this recognition are having sent humanitarian aid to thirty countries, his attachment to humanitarian values ​​and his effort to include the word God in the Russian Constitution.

For their part, the defenders of the Donald Trump award highlight their support for the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and the fact that, if things do not go wrong between now and Tuesday, November 3, the date of the US elections , the American will be the first president in almost four decades not to lead the country into an armed confrontation during his government.

However, although it is still remarkable, that detail has never been an impediment to winning such an award.

Both Barack Obama and Henry Kissinger, both winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, had direct responsibilities in armed conflicts or human rights violations.

In Kissinger's case it was Vietnam and its collaboration with the Southern Cone dictatorships and the Condor Plan;

in Obama's, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

In neither case were these events a problem for receiving the award.

In fact, at the award ceremony, Barack Obama went so far as to apologize for war conflicts by saying: "The instruments of war have a role to play in maintaining peace. In many countries, military interventions look bad. , but someone has to get peace. "

In other words: war as a way to peace, robbery as a way to prosperity, fire as a means to plant trees.

The speech that Barack Obama gave when collecting his Nobel Peace Prize.

A Nobel available to everyone

Although it may seem to a good part of the world population that these nominations are inexplicable, the truth is that they fully and rigorously comply with the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, which consider valid any nomination that arrives before January 31 and that comes from, namely: members of national assemblies and national governments of sovereign states, as well as current heads of state, members of the International Court of Justice in The Hague and the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

Also authorized are "members of the Institute de Droit International, members of the international board of the International League of Women for Peace and Freedom, university professors, emeritus professors and associate professors of history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology and religion, university rectors and directors or their equivalents, directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes, other Nobel Peace Prize laureates, and people associated with the Nobel Prize now or in the past ".

The history of the Nobel Prize is full of scandals and controversies.

Its origin was the desire of Alfred Nobel, a prosperous businessman inventor of explosives such as cordite and dynamite, to wash his image after having become a billionaire with death and destruction

In short, almost anyone in the world is entitled to propose a Nobel Peace Prize, with the exception of the interested party.

That perhaps explains why Benito Mussolini in 1935, Stalin in 1945 and 1948 and even Adolf Hitler, proposed by the Swedish Social Democratic deputy Erik Brandt in 1939, were also candidates. Although Brandt did so with ironic intent, what remains for the story is that indeed the Führer was a candidate only a few months before Germany invaded Poland.

However, these unusual nominations don't just happen in that category.

Although there are fewer international organizations that can nominate in Medicine, Chemistry or Literature, the fact that university professors are authorized to do so - only Swedish in the case of Chemistry and Medicine, but without limitations in the case of Literature -, makes anyone can propose and almost anyone can be proposed.

Miguel Óscar Menassa, writer, poet, painter, psychoanalyst, filmmaker, rhapsodist, editor and founder of the Grupo Cero School of Psychoanalysis, for example, has been boasting for years of having been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010 although, as has happened to them Murakami, Javier Marías or Jorge Luis Borges, he has not succeeded.

The reasons for your nomination?

Of course his vast literary work, but also the fact that his followers knew that the nomination is available to anyone, while the rest of the population, not so much.

A controversial award

Portrait of Alfred Nobel in his laboratory.

Photo: Getty

The history of the Nobel Prize is full of scandals, controversies and debatable decisions since its inception.

Its origin was the desire of Alfred Nobel, a prosperous businessman inventor of explosives such as cordite and dynamite, to wash his image after having become a billionaire with death and destruction.

To do this, he included in his will a legacy so that part of his fortune would be used to organize prizes that recognized the work of those people who had made great benefits for humanity.

However, determining what people or actions have been beneficial to humanity has not been easy either.

In 1918, Fritz Haber received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for synthesizing ammonia, a gas that at the same time was being used as a chemical weapon in the First World War.

Something similar happened with Otto Hahn who, in 1944, received the award for his research on nuclear fission between uranium and thorium, which allowed the development of the first atomic bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nor was the Nobel Prize in Medicine from António Egas Moniz, a Portuguese doctor who created lobotomy, a surgical technique that left irreversible sequelae in countless patients.

In fact, associations of relatives affected by this aggressive method have asked the Nobel Foundation to withdraw the award, something that the statutes of the institution do not allow.

Determining what people or actions have been beneficial to humanity has not been easy.

For example, Otto Hahn received the award for his research on nuclear fission between uranium and thorium, which allowed the development of the first atomic bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What is contemplated in the statutes of the award is that, if those responsible for awarding it do not consider that that year there is a person who deserves it in any category, the award may be void.

This was the case in 1935 with the Literature, from 1915 to 1918 with the Medicine, in 1916, 1917 and 1919 with the Chemistry and in 1948, 1955, 1956, 1966, 1967, 1972 with the Peace.

Therefore, it would not be strange if this year the award was declared void, so that Putin and Trump were left without it, as it already happened a few years ago.

In 2004, the Russian president was nominated for his efforts to dismantle the Syrian chemical arsenal.

For his part, the American was a candidate in 2009 for his plan to improve relations between his country and North Korea.

On those occasions, the Russian was defeated by Kenyan politician and environmentalist Wangari Muta Maathai and the American by Barack Obama.

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