What the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize signalled

What did it mean when the Nobel Peace Prize went to laureates from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine? On 7 October 2022, the award was made jointly to the Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights society Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation the Center for Civil Liberties.

A prize set against a war

The announcement came in the middle of a week of heavy events in the war. On 5 October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law formally annexing the Donetsk People's Republic, the Luhansk People's Republic, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia into Russia. The same day, Ukrainian troops recaptured the village of Dudchany on the west bank of the Dnieper after Russian forces withdrew, part of the Ukrainian southern counteroffensive.

On 6 October 2022, Russian forces shelled residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, killing at least three people, injuring twelve others and causing widespread fires.

What the committee said

The Norwegian Nobel Committee described the three laureates as representatives of civil society in their home countries. In its citation, it said they had for many years promoted the right to criticise power and to protect the fundamental rights of citizens. It also credited them with an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power, and said that together they demonstrated the significance of civil society for peace and democracy.

Why the combination mattered

The prize joined one individual and two organisations from three neighbouring countries. Rather than honouring a single government or a single side, it drew attention to civil society in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The documentation of abuses, which the committee singled out, was the common thread, and it came on a day when attacks on civilians and the formal annexation of Ukrainian territory were among the most recent developments in the war.