To answer those questions, we turn first to the Last Will and Testament of Alfred Bernhard Nobel. He writes that recipients of the prize � ���"for champions of peace [shall be selected] by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.� �� �
You may wonder why Nobel, who was Swedish, designated Norway to award the Peace Prize. The answer appears to be that during Nobel's lifetime, Sweden and Norway were united under one crown. The other four prizes are awarded in Sweden.
The Storting is involved at all because that was Alfred Nobel's wish and not to achieve any particular political or governmental aim. Further, it seems clear to me that the Nobel Committee, in selecting recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, represents not the Storting but the Nobel Institute and the Nobel trust fund � ��" a private fund created by the Will of Alfred Nobel and capitalized by his personal fortune. Although the Committee is elected by the Storting, it is not an instrumentality of the Storting. The Committee is free to select whoever it deems worthy of the Prize.
(As a parallel, I may be a member of the Democratic Party but I am not an instrumentality of it. I am free to think, act, and vote as I see fit.)
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