Nobel Peace Prize winner to be announced today – here’s who could beat Donald Trump

The Norwegian Nobel Committee will announce Friday who has won the Nobel Peace Prize, a highly coveted but notoriously unpredictable award. Here’s who’s in the running

The Norwegian Nobel Committee is set to reveal the recipient of the highly sought-after but notoriously unpredictable Nobel Peace Prize this today, at 9am (GMT). Experts suggest that the committee typically honours those who have made significant contributions to lasting peace, promoted international fraternity, and bolstered institutions that further these aims.

Rumours have been swirling about the potential for US President Donald Trump to scoop the prize, a notion fuelled in part by the president himself. However, seasoned Nobel observers maintain his chances are slim, despite his notable foreign policy interventions and personal claims of credit.

He has been nominated officialy by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Azerbaijan’s president claimed that Trump deserved the prize.

And even Pakistan’s government announced it had nominated him for the giant gold medal.

Matt Mokhefi-Ashton, a Principal Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, told the Independent “In a world where that can happen, then absolutely I think it is possible for Trump to win the Nobel Peace Prize.”

And Trump has commented on it, stating: “I have no idea… I don’t think anybody in history has settled that many (wars). But perhaps they’ll find a reason not to give it to me.

“If I were named Obama I would have had the Nobel Prize given to me in 10 seconds. They gave it to Obama. ^{He didn’t even know what he got it for. He was there for about 15 seconds and he got the Nobel Prize. With me, I probably will never get it.”}

However, there are others who could win, as suggested by the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Those include Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms, a community-led network that has become integral to the country’s humanitarian response to its civil war; the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court; and the Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.-based organisation advocating for press freedom and documenting journalists killed on duty.

Last year’s accolade was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of Japanese atomic bombing survivors who have tirelessly worked to uphold a taboo around the use of nuclear weapons.

The peace prize stands out as the only one of the annual Nobel prizes to be presented in Oslo, Norway.

Four of the other awards have already been handed out in Stockholm, Sweden this week – with medicine on Monday, physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The recipient of the economics prize will be revealed on Monday.

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