The Nobel Prize is a set of annual international awards bestowed in several categories by Swedish and Norwegian institutions in recognition of academic, cultural, or scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist, engineer and industrialist Alfred Nobel established the five Nobel prizes in 1895. The prizes in Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine were first awarded in 1901. The prizes are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards available in their respective fields.
Mairead Maguire, also known as Mairead Corrigan Maguire and formerly as Mairéad Corrigan, is a peace activist from Northern Ireland. She co-founded, with Betty Williams and Ciaran McKeown, the Women for Peace, which later became the Community for Peace People, an organization dedicated to encouraging a peaceful resolution of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Maguire and Williams were awarded the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize.
Hans-Peter Dürr was a German physicist. He worked on nuclear and quantum physics, elementary particles and gravitation, epistemology, and philosophy, and he has advocated responsible scientific and energy policies. In 1987, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "his profound critique of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and his work to convert high technology to peaceful uses."
The Community of Sant'Egidio is a lay Catholic association dedicated to social service, founded in 1968 under the leadership of Andrea Riccardi. The group grew and in 1973 was given a home at the former Carmelite monastery and church of Sant'Egidio in Rome, Italy. In 1986 it received recognition from the Roman Curia of the Holy See as an international association of the faithful. Its activities include the Church's evening prayer together daily as a stimulus for lending assistance to a whole spectrum of needy persons: "lonely and non-self-sufficient elderly, immigrants and homeless people, terminally ill and HIV/AIDS patients, children at risk of deviance and marginalization, nomads and the physically and mentally handicapped, drug addicts, victims of war, and prisoners." The community also has a high profile in the area of peace negotiations, in addressing the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and in its opposition to capital punishment. It takes an ecumenical approach in all of its work.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is a scientific academy of the Vatican City, established in 1936 by Pope Pius XI, and thriving with the blessing of the Papacy ever since. Its aim is to promote the progress of the mathematical, physical, and natural sciences and the study of related epistemological problems. The Academy has its origins in the Accademia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei, founded in 1847 as a more closely supervised successor to the Accademia dei Lincei established in Rome in 1603 by the learned Roman Prince, Federico Cesi (1585–1630), who was a young botanist and naturalist, and which claimed Galileo Galilei as its president. The Accademia dei Lincei survives as a wholly separate institution.
The International Peace Bureau (IPB), founded in 1891, is one of the world's oldest international peace federations.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is a global civil society coalition working to promote adherence to and full implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The campaign helped bring about this treaty. ICAN was launched in 2007 and counts 541 partner organizations in 103 countries as of 2019.
Christian Renoux is a French historian and an activist for nonviolence.
The International Salon for Peace Initiatives is organized in the framework of the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World (2001–2010) declared by the United Nations in 1998. Organized by the French Coalition for the Decade, it has been taken place in Paris every two years since 2004.
Denis Mukwege is a Congolese gynecologist and Pentecostal pastor. He founded and works in Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where he specializes in the treatment of women who have been raped by armed rebels.
Jean-Michel Bokamba-Yangouma is a Congolese politician. He was a prominent political figure from the 1970s to the 1990s, heading the Congolese Trade Union Confederation. He is currently the President of the General Movement for the Construction of Congo, a political party.
Jean Goss was a French nonviolent activist.
Servicio Paz y Justicia is a Human Rights Non Governmental Organisation in Latin America, founded in 1974. It is a Christian based and nonviolent organization, and is committed for the defense of political prisoners in the different South American dictatorships during the Dirty War in the 1970-80s.
The 2012 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the European Union (EU) "for over six decades [having] contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe" by a unanimous decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates was initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1990s, as a forum in which the Nobel Peace Laureates and the Peace Laureate Organizations could come together to address global issues with a view to encourage and support peace and human well being in the world. Its Permanent Secretariat is an independent, non-profit, ECOSOC non-governmental organization, based in Rome, operating on a permanent basis. A permanent staff, mainly composed of volunteers, promotes the work of the Nobel Peace Prize Winners and organizes the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates on a yearly basis. To date, the Permanent Secretariat has organized 16 Summits, the most recent having been held in February 2017 in the city of Bogota, Colombia. This was the first time that the summit took place in Latin America.
The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for "its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011".
Nelly Mbangu is a Congolese women's and children's rights campaigner. She has been involved in many non-governmental organisations in this field and co-founded a movement to bring together 30 organisations with similar aims. She is a woman human rights defender and the coordinator of the Help and Action for Piece - Aide et Action pour la Paix (AAP). Additionally Help and Action for Piece - Aide et Action pour la Paix (AAP) works on good governance topics, conflict resolution of land rights disputes. Those issues often affect women, for this reason Help and Action for piece links these topics together to positively impact the human rights situation in locally.
Solange Lwashiga Furaha is a human and women's rights activist from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the executive secretary of the South Kivu Congolese Women's Caucus for Peace.
The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict," according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee announcement on 5 October 2018 in Oslo, Norway. "Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes," according to the award citation. After reading the citation, Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen told reporters that the impact of this year's award is to highlight sexual abuse with the goal that every level of governance take responsibility to end such crimes and impunities.
