Nobel peace prize returns to roots with Ahtisaari

By Wojciech Moskwa

OSLO (Reuters Life!) - Nobel purists should be happy.

After stretching the definition of peace in past years to include the environment and the economy, the Norwegian Nobel Committee returned to its roots to give peace broker Martti Ahtisaari what many see as the world's top accolade in 2008.

Finland's former president has spent much of the last three decades mediating peace in Africa, Asia and the Balkans for the United Nations and the European Union -- a resume that would probably have appealed to prize founder Alfred Nobel.

In his 1895 will, Sweden's Nobel said the peace prize should be awarded for "the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

The prize, first awarded in 1901, has gradually expanded into advocacy of human rights and democracy -- seen by the Nobel Committee as the basis for peace. This century, it has widened to environmental work and grass-roots economic development.

"I welcome this return," Stein Toennesson, head of Oslo's International Peace Research Institute, told Reuters. "The Committee has taken the signal that it should not be awarded too often to people who work in other areas -- making clear this is a peace prize."

To some critics, last year's laureates, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the U.N. climate panel, did not deserve the distinction because their work to raise awareness of climate change had little direct impact on peace.

In an editorial when Gore won the prize, the Wall Street Journal Europe chose to list peace makers who had not won it, without mentioning the new laureate. The Committee said environmental damage could cause wars over dwindling resources.

Other recent winners include Bangladeshi businessman Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank in 2006 for work to end poverty with micro loans, and environmentalist Wangari Maathai in 2004 for her tree-planting campaign in Kenya.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Ahtisaari, 71, is the first dedicated peace broker to win since former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in 2002.

Nobel Committee Chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes said the award to Ahtisaari was "in Alfred Nobel's spirit," "put peace brokering on the agenda" and, he hoped, would inspire others.

Committee members have said their definition of peace could expand further to honor such fields as journalism -- which they believe can have a direct impact on war and peace. They decided in 2004 to exclude some areas, such as corruption-busting, which though beneficial were not central for peace.

"This award shows what the committee has been doing and will probably continue to do -- alternate between hard-core, more traditional peace laureates and recognizing people through a much wider definition of peace," said Jan Egeland, a Norwegian former head of U.N. emergency aid operations.

The Nobel Peace Prize aims a powerful media spotlight on an individual or cause, which is why many pundits expected the 2008 prize to go to a dissident in China or Russia, countries where human rights have taken a back seat to political goals.