WASHINGTON — Former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and U.S. voting rights activist Stacey Abrams are among the individuals nominated so far for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
Abrams, a Democratic politician whose work was credited with boosting voter turnout during the presidential election, was nominated by a Norwegian lawmaker, according to Reuters. Lars Haltbrekken told the outlet that "Abrams’ work follows in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s footsteps in the fight for equality before the law and for civil rights."
Kushner, along with his deputy, Avi Berkowitz, were nominated for their roles in negotiating four normalization agreements between Israel and Arab countries, known as the "Abraham Accords."
According to Reuters, Kushner was nominated by attorney Alan Dershowitz, who served on the team that represented former President Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial. Dershowitz is eligible to send in nominations in his capacity as a professor emeritus of Harvard Law School.
Kushner and Abrams join a long list of nominees for this year's prize including former president Trump, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, the World Health Organization and Black Lives Matter.
The deadline for Nobel Peace Prize nominations was Monday. The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate will be announced in October.
The 2020 Nobel Peace Prize was given to the UN's World Food Program.
How do you get nominated for Nobel Peace Prize?
Thousands of people around the world are eligible every year to nominate candidates for the prize. And just because a person was nominated, doesn't mean they'll receive serious consideration.
According to the Nobel Foundation statutes, those who are eligible to propose candidates include: "Members of national assemblies and governments of states, Members of international courts, University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes, Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Board members of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee."
Additionally, the Norwegian Nobel Committee never announces the names of nominees and it abides by a 50-year secrecy rule. According to its website, the information in the Nobel Committee’s nomination database is not made public until after fifty years.
The Noble Prize rules don't stop those who nominated a candidate from announcing it, which is how the world typically finds out a person was nominated.
Once all nominations are sent in, the committee puts together a "short list" of nominees and the Nobel Laureates are selected through a committee vote.
The Nobel Prizes started from Alfred Nobel's last will that gave the largest share of his fortune for a series of awards.
