Announcement by
The Norwegian Nobel Committee

Oslo, Norway: The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

Oslo, October 9, 2009 .

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The Norwegian Nobel Committee is assisted by the Norwegian Nobel Institute, established in 1904. The committee might receive well more than a hundred nominations and asks the Nobel Institute in February every year to research about twenty candidates. The director of the Nobel Institute also serves as secretary to the Norwegian Nobel Committee; currently this position belongs to Geir Lundestad.Thorbjørn Jagland has been the Norwegian Nobel Committee's leader since 2009. Thorbjørn Jagland is a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party, and the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe. The President of the Storting since 2005, he served as the Prime Minister of Norway from 1996 to 1997, and later as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2000 to 2001. Prior to becoming Prime Minister, Jagland served as party secretary from 1986 to 1992, and subsequently party leader until 2002, when he was succeeded by Jens Stoltenberg. In 2009, he became Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. He did not run for reelection to parliament in 2009.

Since World War II, the Peace Prize has principally been awarded to honour efforts in four main areas: arms control and disarmament, peace negotiation, democracy and human rights, and work aimed at creating a better organized and more peaceful world. Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with Frédéric Passy, a leading international pacifist of the time. In addition to humanitarian efforts and peace movements, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded for work in a wide range of fields including advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts, and arms control.

Wangari Maathai was the first to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for environmental work and Former Vice President of the United States (45th, January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001), Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007, the Nobel Committee has indicated that its concept of peace now also embraces efforts to limit the harm done by man-made climate change and threats to the environment.

2009 Nobel Peace Prize emphasized about the vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations which Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated.

It is important to ensuring that nuclear materials globally are properly safeguarded which the United State has taken the lead since several years ago. A popular program that has received bipartisan domestic support for over a decade is the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR). The CTR program has led to several other innovative and important nonproliferation programs that need to continue to be a budget priority in order to ensure that nuclear weapons do not spread to actors hostile. The USA continues to make green evironment and extra effort for the great climatic challenges the world is confronting also strengthening the Democracy and human rights in a contructive manner.

"For his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" said Nobel Peace Committee Chair, Thorbjørn Jagland.

Reported by catch4all.com, Sandra Englund, October 9th, 2009

Sources:

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http://catch4all.com/positive/2009/WhiteHouse/Environment/.

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