Committee Decision Courts Controversy - WSJ.com

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By GUY CHAZAN and ALISTAIR MACDONALD

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama, so early in his presidency, is bound to reignite criticism of the workings of the Nobel committee.

The deadline for nominations for the prize was Feb. 1 -- two weeks after Mr. Obama was inaugurated.

"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far," former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, said Friday. "He is still at an early stage."

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The award reflects the enormous hopes invested in Mr. Obama, both in the U.S. and abroad, since he entered the White House, and the occasionally unrealistic expectations that his presidency could change the face of international diplomacy.

The Peace Prize Committee, made up of Norwegians, appeared to have anticipated criticism of its choice. (The other Nobel prizes are awarded by a Swedish committee.) Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said the prize often has been used to encourage laureates rather than reward them for their achievements.

"The committee wants to not only endorse but contribute to enhancing that kind of international policy and attitude which [Obama] stands for," said Mr. Jagland, a former Norwegian prime minister, said at a news conference.

He cited the example of Willy Brandt, the West German chancellor who won the prize in 1971. That award, he said, encouraged Mr. Brandt to pursue Ostpolitik, the push to normalize West Germany's relations with the communist bloc. Mr. Brandt was elected chancellor in 1969 and served until 1974.

Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, said he wasn't expecting the Obama award but said the president "has done some things already and he has the wonderful possibility of doing more things."

Mr. Obama's main achievement so far was the change the policy of his predecessor who had "put the world on a war footing [and] created suspicion and division," Mr. Yunus said in a telephone interview. But his policy announcements on moving towards nuclear disarmament, halting missile defense in Europe and securing peace in the Middle East gave grounds for hope, he said.

Mr. Yunus, who made his name by establishing a bank providing tiny loans to women in his native Bangladesh, a development copied in many other poor countries, said he heard about his own award from a Norwegian television journalist only about 15 minutes before it was announced. Normally, he was told, the recipient is informed about an hour before the announcement.

The Nobel committee has courted controversy from time-to-time ever since its founding in 1901. In 1906, it awarded the peace prize to President Theodore Roosevelt for his role in bringing an end to the Russo-Japanese war. But for many Americans and others around the world, Roosevelt was better known for his willingness to project U.S. military force, including a global tour of an expanded U.S. Navy, not to mention his pre-Presidential exploits as a cavalry officer during the Spanish-American war of 1898.

The Norwegians also earned big brickbats in 1973 for awarding the prize to Henry Kissinger, vilified by many on the left as a pushing for the expansion of the Vietnam War into neighboring countries. His co-laureate, the Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho, was the only person ever to decline the award.

The committee has also been criticized for political bias, especially after it awarded the Nobel to Jimmy Carter in 2002 and Al Gore in 2007 -- moves that were both seen as rebukes to the then U.S. president, George W. Bush.

They've also been slammed for their omissions. Mahatma Gandhi, the iconic leader of the Indian independence movement and a symbol of nonviolence, never won the Nobel, though he was nominated five times.

The selection process has become increasingly cumbersome as the aura around the prize has grown. There are now between 150 and 200 nominations every year: This year saw a record 205.

Examples of nominees who didn't win the peace prize include Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator, and Adolf Hitler, whose name was put forward in 1939.

When all the nominations are in, the committee draws up a short list of between five and 20 candidates which are then considered by the Nobel Institute's director and research director and a group of Norwegian university professors. Their reports on the candidates are then discussed by the five-member prize committee.

Members, all of whom are former or serving deputies of the Storting, the Norwegian parliament, seek to reach a unanimous decision -- normally by mid-September -- but this has sometimes proved impossible and the choice is then made by a simple majority vote.

Some have criticized the selection procedure as untransparent. The committee never announces the names of nominees and information about candidacies is only made public 50 years after the decision. "It is all done in secret, you don't know what is happening and whoever sits on that panel is very susceptible to the tides of the moment," said Philip Towle, an academic from the department of politics and international studies at the University of Cambridge.

Even in Norway, where Mr. Obama enjoys huge popularity, the decision raised eyebrows among some. "It is just too soon," said Siv Jensen, leader of Norway's main opposition party, the Progress Party. "It is wrong to give him the peace prize for his ambition. You should receive it for results."

She said that the decision to bestow the award on the president was the most controversial she could remember and was one of a number that had moved the prize further away from the ideals of Alfred Nobel.

Others made the same point in somewhat more diplomatic language. Amnesty International, which won the peace prize in 1977, congratulated Mr. Obama but said he couldn't stop there. "President Obama has taken some positive steps towards improving human rights in the U.S.A. and abroad, but much remains to be done," said Irene Kahn, Amnesty's secretary general.

—Joel Sherwood contributed to this article.