The Norwegian Nobel Committee. (Citation).

The Nobel Peace Prize 2001

THE NORWEGIAN NOBEL COMMITTEE has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2001, in two equal portions, to the United Nations (U.N.) and to its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.

For one hundred years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to strengthen organized cooperation between States. The end of the cold war has at last made it possible for the U.N. to perform more fully the part it was originally intended to play. Today the Organization is at the forefront of efforts to achieve peace and security in the world, and of the international mobilization aimed at meeting the world's economic, social and environmental challenges.

Kofi Annan has devoted almost his entire working life to the U.N. As Secretary General, he has been pre-eminent in bringing new life to the organization. While clearly underlining the U.N.'s traditional responsibility for peace and security, he has also emphasized its obligations with regard to human rights. He has risen to such new challenges as HIV/AIDS and international terrorism, and brought about more efficient utilization of the U.N.'s modest resources. In an organization that can hardly become more than its members permit, he has made clear that sovereignty can not be a shield behind which Member States conceal their violations.

The U.N. has in its history achieved many successes, and suffered many setbacks. Through this first Peace Prize to the U.N. as such, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes in its centenary year to proclaim that the only negotiable route to global peace and cooperation goes by way of the United Nations.

Oslo, 12 October 2001

On 12 October 2001 in Oslo, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced it had decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2001 in two equal portions--to the United Nations and to its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan--"for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world" (see ciation opposite).

Speaking to a cheering crowd of staff members as he entered UN Headquarters in New York, Mr. Annan said: "This is an indispensable Organization, but an organization that can only work because of the staff and your dedication. Our staff are often on the front lines. In the past week alone we lost about ten colleagues in Georgia and Afghanistan. And yet our staff keep at it. You are prepared to go to any corner of the world in service of peace and the work of the United Nations....Let me say that if the UN has achieved anything, it is because of the work that you do, and your dedication, and we look forward to many more years of that kind of service. And who knows, if you keep at it, maybe some of you will see another Nobel Peace Prize. If you are going to get that next Nobel Peace Prize, I think we had better go back to work."

In his will, the benefactor of the awards, Alfred Nobel, stated that prizes should be given to those who, during the preceding year, "shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind", and that one of the prizes be given to the person who "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

Forty years ago, the second UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold, was awarded the 1961 Prize posthumously "in gratitude for all he did, for what he achieved, for what he fought for: to create peace and goodwill among nations and men" (see "From the Secretary-General" on page 44). And in 1950, Jeremy Ralph Bunche, acting mediator in Palestine, received the prize for his mediation of the 1949 armistice between Israel and seven Arab States.

The UN system has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on five previous occasions. The award was given to the UN Peacekeeping Operations in 1988, while the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) received it in 1954 and in 1981. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) was awarded the Prize in 1965, and the international Labour Organization (ILO) in 1969.