Nobel Peace Prize Winners List: Arafat, Gore, How Are They Chosen

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December 10, 2007 - Oslo, Norway

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sourced by Amy Judd

Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, but he has many winners before him, such as Yasser Arafat and Al Gore who have also been awarded this high honor.

A Complete List of Nobel Prize Winners from 1901 to 2009

Some of the winners were more controversial than others, with three previous US Presidents being on the list, but we'll take a closer look at a few of the recipients.

Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

He won with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for the negotiations at the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Al Gore and the Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Al Gore shared his prize with the panel for their work on global warming, saying that it was the greatest challenge that the world has ever faced. Al Gore also made a documentary called An Inconvenient Truth about global warming to raise awareness. He called President Obama's win 'well deserved' and an honor for the United States.

Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize n 1986.

He was called a 'messenger to mankind' working on behalf of the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust to make sure that the world remembers that all mankind deserves peace, atonement and human dignity. His memoir Night is probably the best example of how he has used his skill as an author to do this.

Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

Mother Teresa has long been the figurehead for peace and human compassion throughout the world. She founded the Missionaries of Charity kin Kolkata in 1950 and she dedicated her life to helping the sick, poor, dying and orphaned who had no one else to turn to. Along with the Nobel Peace Prize she also won India's highest honor the Bharat Ratna. Her legacy continues to live on.

Henry Dunant and Frederic Passy were the first winners of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.

Henry Dunant was the founder of the International Red Cross Movement and initiated the Geneva Convention, both of which are still very important to the continuation of humanity today.
Frederic Passy was the founder of the Peace League and worked with Dunant in the Alliance for Order and Civilization.

How are the Nobel Prize Winners nominated and then selected?

Anyone who has won a Nobel Peace Prize may nominate someone to be a winner, but they cannont nominate themselves.
Also, qualified individuals include members of national assemblies and international courts and active and former member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee is responsible for the selection of the candidates, and five members make up that committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament.

The invitation letters to people qualified to nominate are sent out in September and they have until February to submit their decision.

Between February and March the short list of five to twenty people is decided upon, and then from March to August deliberation takes place.

It is in October that the winner for that year is announced and then in December the winner(s) receives their prize. The ceremony takes place December 10 in Oslo, Norway.