Inside the room where Nobel Peace Prize is decidedpublished at 08:58 BST
08:58 BST
Mark Lowen
BBC News
Image source, Liam Weir / BBCImage caption,
Chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes, right, tells Mark Lowen the committee is always inundated with people suggesting who should win
Every year since 1901 they have come together in secret, neither disclosing when they deliberate, nor allowing journalists to see their final meeting – until now.
The Nobel committee members – the guardians of the world’s most prestigious award – will shortly be announcing who will be receiving this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. And the BBC, along with Norway’s national broadcaster, was given access as they gathered to make their choice. It is the first time in the award’s 125-year history that the media have been allowed a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the process.
“We discuss, we argue, there is a high temperature,” the chairman of the committee, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, tells me, “but also, of course, we are civilised, and we try to make a consensus-based decision every year.”
The Norwegian committee is appointed by the country’s parliament, and although the members – usually retired MPs – fiercely guard their independence, many have strident views.
This year may be somewhat overshadowed by the campaign from the White House
But if Donald Trump wants to find out what has happened behind that committee door, exactly who nominated him and who he’s been up against, he’ll have a problem – the papers are kept secret for 50 years.