The Nobel Foundation prohibits the withdrawal of prizes, even if controversial. Committees carefully vet nominees, but some laureates have been controversial. The foundation releases documents 50 years after the fact. Some awards were controversial at the time but later deemed deserved. No prize has been revoked, but some have been withheld due to political reasons or personal choice.
No one has ever been deprived of a Nobel Prize, because this is actually specifically prohibited by the organization that administers the Nobel Prizes. According to the Nobel Foundation, “no appeal may be lodged against the decision of an awarding body regarding the awarding of a prize” and no prize may be withdrawn retrospectively, however controversial they may seem. Despite the existence of several petitions pushing for the withdrawal of controversial Nobel Prize winners, the organization is unlikely to change its rules to make a withdrawal possible.
The committees that administer the Nobel Prizes are very cautious. They vet nominees very carefully, often awarding prizes 20 years or more after the Nobel-worthy milestone. In some cases, the committee dwelt so long on the award decision that the honoree died before the prize could be awarded, which explains why some ostensibly Nobel worthy people failed to receive Nobel Prizes.
Some Nobel laureates have certainly been controversial, especially after the fact. Antonio Egas Moniz, for example, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1949 for his development of the so-called “ice pick lobotomy,” a brutal medical procedure that has been widely condemned. Some controversial leaders such as Henry Kissinger and Yasser Arafat won controversial peace prizes, along with people who were later deemed morally suspect, such as the German author Guenter Grass, who later admitted to having served in the SS during the second World War.
The Nobel Foundation freely acknowledges that the awarding of some prizes has given rise to controversy and concern from the international community. As a result, the organization has agreed to release documents relating to their decisions, but these documents are not released until 50 years after the fact. The argument is that these awards are designed to be timeless, rather than influenced by social issues during a particular era, and that therefore some time may be needed for perspective.
As discussed above in the case of Antonio Egas Moniz, the judgment of Nobel Prize Committees is not always perfect and, in hindsight, some Nobel Prizes probably should not have been awarded. In contrast, however, there are some awards that were controversial at the time, such as Einstein’s 1921 Nobel Prize, which later turned out to be fully deserved. Defenders of the controversial decisions have also argued that researchers don’t always have control over what others do with their inventions and discoveries, and that someone who has committed questionable acts is still able to contribute to the advancement of culture and science. .
While no Nobel Prize has been revoked, there are some instances where the award has been withheld. In Nazi Germany, several honorees were forced to refuse to accept awards due to an edict from Adolf Hitler; Hitler was annoyed that he hadn’t received a Nobel Prize and decided that if he couldn’t get it, no German should be. Several people, including Jean-Paul Sartre, have also turned down Nobel Prizes for personal reasons.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
