María Corina Machado

Dear Commons Community,

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, announced today that María Corina Machado, won the Noble Peace Prize, citing “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”  As reported by The New York Times.

Ms. Machado emerged from Venezuela’s political sidelines to build a powerful social movement that brought thousands of people on to the streets ahead of an election last year. That followed years of political apathy in Venezuela, where the government of President Nicolás Maduro crushed protests and arrested dissidents, helping to spur an enormous exodus from the country.

Last year, the award went to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese group representing the survivors of the atomic bombs, many of whom have campaigned for nuclear disarmament. In 2023, it went to Narges Mohammadi, Iran’s most prominent human rights activist.

Here’s what else to know:

• A secretive process: The Nobel committee accepts nominations from a pool of potentially thousands of nominators, and though the official list of nominees is kept secret, some names are revealed by those who nominated them. This year, 338 candidates — 244 people and 94 organizations — were nominated for the prize. A committee of five people appointed by the Norwegian Parliament selects the recipient in secret.
• The other Nobels: Friday’s ceremony follows a week of Nobel Prizes in the arts and sciences. The award for literature was announced on Thursday and went to Laszlo Krasznahorkai of Hungary. The prize for physics was given to John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis for their work in quantum mechanics and electric circuits. The final Nobel Prize, in economics, will be awarded on Oct. 13. 
• Trump’s campaign: President Trump has been obsessed with winning the award for years, complaining privately and publicly that he has not received the honor. Several groups or individuals — including the leaders of Israel, Pakistan and Cambodia — said they had nominated him, though this year’s award was intended to honor achievements in 2024, before Mr. Trump had returned to the White House.

David Scheffer, a former U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues and an international law scholar at Arizona State University, said that in choosing Ms. Machado, the Nobel committee had “elevated a courageous hero of peacemaking — someone who works among her own people to protect them against repression and atrocity crimes in order to shape a more peaceful and democratic world.”

Tensions between the United States and Venezuela have escalated in recent weeks, after President Trump said that the United States was in an armed conflict with drug cartels. His administration has launched military strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea that it says are used by drug smugglers, and some of Trump’s top aides are pushing to oust President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela from office.

Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, was asked by a reporter how President Trump’s public campaign for the prize may have affected deliberations on the prize. He responded that the body receives letters every year backing specific candidates but that the only guiding principle for selecting the recipient are those set out by Alfred Nobel, when he set up the prize.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which organizes the prize, gave Machado the prize “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

Congratulations to Ms. Machado!  Well-deserved!

Tony

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