International figures such as former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton could get a say in who wins the Nobel Peace Prize, as a recent spat with China pushes Norway to spread responsibility for the award.
Norway is still suffering the fall-out from the Nobel committee’s decision to award the prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) in 2010.
Although Norway’s government had no say in the decision, China was furious. It has frozen trade talks, canceled ministerial exchanges and greatly reduced salmon imports.
Norway has desperately tried to rebuild ties, even refusing to meet the Dalai Lama, another Nobel peace laureate, when he visited the Scandinavian country earlier this month.
The dispute has triggered a debate in Norway over how to convince the rest of the world that the Nobel committee is not an extension of the country’s government.
“The committee must absolutely consider opening itself to more diverse people, including the possibility to admit foreigners,” said the director of Oslo’s Peace Research Institute, Kristian Berg Harpviken, who has long been a supporter of reforming the committee.
Now, an opportunity has presented itself, as three of the committee’s five members, including Jagland, are up for renewal later this year.
The name of Annan — Nobel Peace laureate in 2001 — has come up. Clinton and Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt have also been mentioned.
“These are not bad proposals,” conservative parliamentary group president Trond Helleland told reporters. “We are open to a discussion about candidates with profiles that are different from before. It could be academics or possibly foreigners.”
Critics argue that replacing Norwegian politicians with foreign politicians would not do much to rectify the impression that the prize is politically motivated.
“The idea to cut ties with the political world should apply to foreigners in the same way it does to Norwegians,” Harpviken said.
The conservatives will make a decision after the summer, and the Norwegian Labor Party intends to renew Jagland, who could even remain president.
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