Lund, December 10, 2015
On the day of the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony at Oslo City Hall
To whom it may concern, including the media
We know – and Alfred Nobel knew – how devastating war and arms races are, and how little security we get for all the money we spend on military forces.
The campaign to reclaim the Nobel Peace Prize is first and foremost a campaign to revive the idea that global peace requires global cooperation on disarmament and replacing the law of force with the force of law. Every day more and more of us see, from the Middle East warfare, from the refugee crisis, and many other chilling reminders, the mandatory urgency of a change in world politics.
Alfred Nobel decided to give one fifth of his fortune for a prize to promote disarmament and resolution of all conflicts through negotiations and legal means, never through violence.
Can such a prize, with a so clearly stated goal, be turned to serve the opposite idea and be given again and again to recipients who promote arms races and believe in militarism and war?
This question will soon be answered, after Mairead Maguire, Jan Oberg, Davis Swanson, and Lay Down Your Arms took the case to the Stockholm District Court on Friday 4th of December 2015. Here is the full text of the summons.
and all other relevant information is available at the Nobel Peace Prize Watch.
Test case: the award to the European Union in 2012
The court case will test one of the most obvious violations of the Nobel idea of building global peace by peaceful means, namely the prize for the European Union in 2012 (the option to test the Obama prize in 2009, had lapsed – a three years limit applies).
“We are not going to court for our own financial benefit,” says Fredrik Heffermehl, “but to get a court order on Nobel’s purpose and the limits the peace prize must keep within. To this end we had to sue the board of the Nobel Foundation to restitute to the Foundation the one million Euro paid to the EU in 2012. Tthe money was paid to the EU against protests from a.o. Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire, Perez Esquivel and the International Peace Bureau.”
The campaign to reclaim the Nobel Peace Prize was started in 2007 by Fredrik Heffermehl and Jan Oberg.
Fredrik S. Heffermehl has spent the last eight years to research the peace program of Alfred Nobel and Bertha von Suttner, and how the Norwegian Nobel Committee has step by step disconnected the prize from the will expressed by the testator.
“We have had years of negotiations, the Nobel Foundation knows the facts, they have the order of the Foundations authority, and we have not given up the hope of an amicable solution; it would be sad to see the Foundation spend money and energy to oppose the visionary peace and disarmament plan that Nobel intended his money to promote”, says Tomas Magnusson.
“If the board of the foundation gives a satisfactory promise to, in the future, respect and promote the disarmament work and ideas Nobel and Suttner had in mind, we will immediately drop the court case,” says Fredrik Heffermehl.
“All money raised for this case will be used to promote the original Lay Down Your Arms idea of Nobel,” says Tomas Magnusson.
Background
At the time when Alfred Nobel wrote his will there was a clear division between those believing in the military way, and those insisting on other ways to solve conflict, through cooperation, international law, international institutions, arbitration and global disarmament – as it is today! Alfred Nobel chose side in this debate, he joined and funded Suttner´s peace movement, the Austrian Verein der Friedensfreunde and the International Peace Bureau.
There is no room for doubt what “champions of peace” Nobel wanted to support with his will. Here are examples of who they were in 2015.
For more information, all relevant documents, including the application for summons go to The Nobel Peace Prize Watch.
The plaintiffs
The plaintiffs are represented by the law firm Lewis and Partners in Stockholm, are the following
Mairead Maguire, Belfast, Northern Ireland, Nobel Laureate (1976), peace activist.
Jan Oberg, Lund Sweden, Dr.hc., co-founder and director of the independent Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
David Swanson, USA, World Beyond War organizer, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Lay Down Your Arms, organization registered in Sweden, to promote the Nobel Peace Prize and its vision. Running the Nobel Peace Prize Watch.
