The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner is set to be announced Friday in Oslo, Norway.
At total of 343 nominees – 251 individuals and 92 organizations – are vying for the prize this year, according to the Nobel Institute. But the full list is not yet public and will only be released after 50 years.
The Nobel Peace Prize should go to the person “who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses,” according to the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who founded the awards.
“I think it’s widely accepted that the Nobel Peace Prize is the most prestigious award in the world concerning peace efforts,” said Cesar Jaramillo, executive director of Project Ploughshares, a Canadian peace research institute.
Because of its importance, the award constitutes a “huge boost” for the cause that the recipient is working on or fighting for, he said.
Nobel Prize in physics awarded to 3 scientists for work on quantum science
Last year, the prize was shared by Filipino-American journalist Maria Ressa and Russian journalist Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.”
This year’s award will be announced against the backdrop of Russia’s war on Ukraine, that has now entered its eighth month.
It also comes in the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In many ways, the peace prize is only becoming more important and more relevant when we’re (going) through times like the ones that we are experiencing now,” said Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
Here are some of the likely contenders for this year’s award.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appears on a screen set up at a court room of the Moscow City Court via a video link from his prison colony provided by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service during an appeal hearing against his nine-year prison sentence. Tuesday, May 24, 2022.
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic.
Navalny, an anti-corruption crusader, has been jailed in Russia since January 2021 on charges widely seen as politically motivated.
Navalny’s opposition movement had been labeled “extremist” and was shut down, although his supporters continue to express their political stance on social media.
Navalny has also voiced his opposition to Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine.
