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Nobel Peace Prize: Does winning make a difference?
Each October, when the Nobel Peace Prize winner is announced, it can bring sudden fame to a campaigner for a hitherto obscure cause or greater dignity and respect to men or women already famous for their work.
Each October, when the Nobel Peace Prize winner is announced, it can bring sudden fame to a campaigner for a hitherto obscure cause or greater dignity and respect to men or women already famous for their work.
The process will be repeated Friday when year's winner is picked from a record 194 nominees. Among the favorites are the International Atomic Energy Agency and its director, Mohamed ElBaradei; former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix; and U.S. Senator Richard Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn, who backed a program to curb weapons of mass destruction.
The prize is often used to encourage efforts toward peace, human rights or democracy, and can be used to indirectly criticize governments _ in 2002, peace prize committee member Gunnar Berge said the prize to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter should "be interpreted as a criticism" of the Bush administration's move to invade Iraq.
But in the end, does the decision by five little-known Norwegians make any difference?
"That's the great question," said Irwin Abrams, one of the world's leading experts on the prize. He said sometimes the impact is clear, other times it's harder to see.
Many of past 15 Nobel Peace Prizes - created by Alfred Nobel, the Swede who invented dynamite, and first awarded in 1901 - seem to have honored peace efforts that then foundered, with few clear successes.
"It's not a magic wand that creates peace," said Geir Lundestad, the non-voting secretary of the awards committee. "It's a loudspeaker and microphone for the laureates, especially those who are lesser known. It's a door opener."
The peace processes in the Middle East, honored in 1994, and Northern Ireland, in 1998, are in tatters. Fifteen years after his 1989 prize, Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama remains in exile. Guatemalan Indian Rigoberta Menchu, honored in 1992, largely faded from sight following allegations of inaccuracy in the autobiography that helped garner the prize.
But ex-President Carter said the prize was very important. "The Nobel Peace Prize was very helpful to me personally and to The Carter Center and it's humanitarian projects in many nations around the world," Carter told the AP by e-mail. "Most of our work is among the poorest, most neglected, and needy people in about 65 nations, and had received very little public attention. The prize brought much-needed recognition."
Lundestad, the committee secretary, said examples of successful recent efforts were in East Timor and South Africa. In 1996, the prize went to East Timor independence and democracy activities Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo Jose Ramos-Horta. East Timor did gain independence from Indonesia in 1999.
"The East Timor people give us credit for their independence. Maybe too much credit," said Lundestad. "Ramos-Hotra told me that no one (in foreign governments) would even see them before the prize. He said he was sleeping in railroad stations because they had no money. After the prize, they got in anywhere." The Dalai Lama also has said that prize made it possible for him to meet top world leaders to argue for Tibet's freedom from China.