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The committee declared that he represented a new kind of diplomacy. I think it was very much a decision to award one of the world’s greatest nations with the largest military and the most nuclear weapons for moving in the right direction. I will not judge the success of that decision. Aung San Suu Kyi, another controversial prize recipient, received the prize in 1991 for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights. She formed the National League for Democracy in 1988, and in a 1991 election, the NLD won 81% of the seats in Parliament. The results were nulli- fied by the military government in power, and she was placed on house arrest for the following twenty years. She was a politi- cal prisoner who advocated for non-vio- lent pursuit of democracy in Burma at the time she was awarded the Prize. She was the greatest symbol of freedom fighters in Myanmar, or Burma, as Aung San Suu Kyi herself calls her country. She later became the equivalent of Prime Minister in Bur- ma when the NLD gained power in 2015. But while she was Prime Minister, she was criticized for failing to condemn violence against Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic mi- nority in Burma, and for arrests of journal- ists investigating the Inn Din massacre of Rohingyas. Today, she is once again a po- litical prisoner, under very similar circum- stances to those that led to her award in 1991: the NLD won the 2020 election, but a military coup d’état ensued. The new gov- ernment nullified the election results and imprisoned her. Her arrest and imprison- ment have been condemned by the United States and United Nations. I believe her to have been a very worthy recipient. Mother Theresa is the most popular peace prize recipient ever. But many wonder whether the prize came too early. What had she done? Her credo was compassion. Does compassion create peace? I don’t think we really have scientific proof for that, but if we understand a world at peace to be one without poverty and suffering, her work in service of improving the human condition was undoubtedly worthy of recognition. I now move on to the prize awarded last year. To me, the award shows a very clear line that can be drawn through many of the prizes that the Committee has awarded in my time: prizes awarded for strengthening civil society. The prize went to Ales Bialiatski, a Belrusian pro-democracy and human rights activist, a Russian organization called Memorial, and the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. Bialiatski has been a political prisoner in Belarus since 2021. Memorial investigates and publicizes human rights violations, primarily in Russia. CCL plays a central role in efforts to doc- ument war crimes committed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Because what can we do when world leaders, state leaders, do not create peace? At the time of war, what is the weapon which may create peace? It is the strength of civil society, of lawyers, of journalists, of historians who show us the atrocities that war created. The people who see an unprovoked war and a very real threat of the use of nuclear weapons and realize that the world is more dangerous today than ever, and that it is time to stand up against these regimes. Last year’s recipients are the kind of people, the very honorable, representatives of civil society, that do exactly that. But what I want to say to all of you – and I think Fred Gray \[see p. 25\], who was just awarded here today, is a fantastic representative of this – any person with ideas of justice and peace has a mandate to stand up, identify what is wrong and argue against it – a mandate to use their voice. Lawyers, as a group, are trained to do just that. One of the most wonderful recipients, Nelson Mandela, was a lawyer and used his vocation as a rostrum for speaking for peace, and fighting against injustice. Isn’t this the very reason why very many of us became lawyers: to create a better and more just world? Catherine M. Recker Philadelphia, PA SUMMER 2023 JOURNAL 48 Can the spirit of Alfred Nobel’s legacy create peace? Now, my work and the work of my colleagues is only to recognize the very outstanding people who fight for peace, but it is our duty to see peace in corners of the world and activities that you perhaps have not connected to peace prior.