Nobel Peace Prize Could Be Cancelled Due to Global Conflict: Expert

As violence and instability surge worldwide, an expert said this year’s Nobel Peace Prize may be withheld for the first time since 1972.

The award, traditionally honoring efforts to foster peace, faces the dilemma of being conferred at a time where international hostilities are deepening by the day.

Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, questioned the appropriateness of awarding the prize in 2024.

“I look at the world and see so much conflict, hostility and confrontation,” he said. “I wonder if this is the year the Nobel Peace Prize should be withheld.”

Smith highlighted ongoing violence in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, and the rising risk of famine in Sudan as factors contributing to his stance. He pointed to his institute’s research showing that global military spending is increasing at its fastest pace since World War II.

“It could go to some groups which are making heroic efforts but are marginalized,” Smith said. “But the trend is in the wrong direction. Perhaps it would be right to draw attention to that by withholding the peace prize this year.”

There is also the issue of increasing global military spending, which is growing at its fastest pace since World War II, throughout which several Peace prizes were canceled.

All five prizes will be announced throughout next week, starting with the Physiology/Medicine prize, followed on subsequent days by the physics, chemistry, literature and peace awards.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been suspended 19 times before, including during both world wars.

Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, says withdrawal would be a mistake in 2024.

Urdal suggested that grassroots organizations, particularly those working to mitigate violence in the Middle East, could be strong contenders for the prize.

He says continuing the prize is “arguably more important as a way to promote and recognize important work for peace.”

Nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize are kept secret for 50 years, but some potential contenders have been made public.

Academics at the Free University of Amsterdam have nominated Middle Eastern organizations like EcoPeace, Women Wage Peace, and Women of the Sun for their efforts in promoting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Urdal suggests the Sudan Emergency Response Rooms, grassroots initiatives providing aid amid Sudan’s brutal Civil War, could also be under consideration.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo are tasked with selecting a winner, so if there is one, it’ll be awarded there on October 11.

Apart from the Peace Prize, all award ceremonies take place in Stockholm, home of Alfred Nobel, who founded the institute in 1895.

Reasons for forgoing the selection process vary throughout history—the Peace Prize was famously not awarded in 1948 following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi, who had been nominated several times in his life, was widely considered the front-runner for the prize.

In 1956, international relations were so fraught, particularly due the Hungarian Uprising and the Suez Crisis, that the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided no single individual or group had made a significant affect.

In the case of Physics, no work produced in 1921 was deemed worthy of scientific merit. Albert Einstein won the award the following year.

Advancements in artificial intelligence are poised to make a significant affect across multiple Nobel Prize categories this year, with some experts predicting AI could receive top honors in chemistry or medicine.

David Pendlebury, head of research at Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information, has identified Google DeepMind scientists as potential contenders for the chemistry prize.

Their AI system, AlphaFold, has made significant strides in predicting protein structures, a development already being applied in fields including medicine and one that could lead to groundbreaking drugs.

Pendlebury, whose team tracks the world’s most-cited research, believes it’s only a matter of time before AI takes center stage in the Nobel arena.

“AI will increasingly be a part of the panoply of tools that researchers use,” Pendlebury said. He said he would be extremely surprised if a discovery “firmly anchored in AI” did not win Nobel prizes in the next 10 years.

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press