AndersO

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the original prizes established by Alfred Nobel in his will. It was Nobel himself who stipulated that the recipient should be chosen by a Norwegian committee. The prize is presented in Oslo. There is a longer story here than we cannot go into on this occasion. Its historical background lies in the final years of the union between Sweden and Norway, which lasted from 1814 to 1905. Some people believe that the Peace Prize is awarded directly by Norway’s parliament, the Storting. It is not. It is awarded by an independent committee whose members are appointed by the Storting. A committee, however, whose members often have very close ties to Norway’s political establishment. Why, then, has the Norwegian Nobel Committee chosen a controversial figure such as Navi Pillay for the Peace Prize? I believe one reason is that the circles around Norway’s foreign service have felt a need to celebrate themselves and their distinctive approach. Ever since the Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 and 1995, Norway’s foreign policy establishment has been convinced that Norway has a distinctive model for peace that delivers results. The model has also become part of Norway’s image of itself as a small country with a special moral authority. It was a model that placed great emphasis on multilateral organisations, above all the United Nations. It placed great emphasis on dialogue with all parties, including those regarded internationally as the “bad guys”. And it placed great emphasis on upholding what might be called the international legal order. In recent years, however, many of the achievements celebrated in Oslo as triumphs of this distinctively Norwegian foreign policy model have crumbled. Above all, the Oslo Accords. Let us be honest: they lie in ruins. Yet throughout the ongoing conflict, Norway’s foreign service has quietly maintained its contacts with the Palestinian side. With nothing to show for it. Finally, although this has probably attracted most attention among specialists, Norway’s foreign service is in a deep crisis. Two of the key figures behind the Oslo Accords are now embroiled in corruption investigations and scandal over their inappropriate closeness to Jeffrey Epstein. The Storting therefore recently held hearings to examine the extent of irregularities in Norway’s foreign service. They left the central questions unresolved. But the current prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, could nevertheless assure us, to nobody’s surprise, that there was no evidence linking Norway’s cooperation with the International Peace Institute to Epstein during his own tenure as foreign minister, from 2005 to 2012. The rest of the world can chew on that while the other investigations run their course. Awarding the prize to Navi Pillay can readily be seen as a way of honouring Norway’s own foreign policy model - and reaffirming the national self-image built around it. Unfortunately, the prize also seems to honour all the flaws built into that model: the UN’s chronic antisemitism. The UN’s chronic failure to act in time when whistleblowers sound the alarm - for example, when Emma Reilly warned that Pillay’s office was confirming by email to Chinese diplomats which named human rights defenders were planning to attend UN meetings. And the UN’s indifference to fundamental liberal rights, such as freedom of expression.