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Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to IAEA and Director General

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei addressing the media. (Photo Credit: D. Calma/IAEA)

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2005 to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and to its Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, for their work for a safer and more peaceful world. The Award was announced today.

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2005 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way," the announcement said.

The Director General will hold a press conference in Vienna later today. See Media Advisory.

The Award Ceremonies take place in Oslo, Norway 10 December at the Oslo City Hall. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, whose five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget), is entrusted both with the preparatory work related to prize adjudication and with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Peace Prize is awarded annually at a ceremony on 10 December, the day on which Alfred Nobel died in 1896. Alfred Nobel was a Swedish scientist who in 1867 patented a special type of nitroglycerine that he called dynamite. He left the bulk of his rich estate to a fund administered by the Nobel Foundation.

The full text of the Nobel Peace Prize Press Release follows:

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2005

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2005 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way.

At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its Director General. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which controls that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the Director General has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime. At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, IAEA´s work is of incalculable importance.

In his will, Alfred Nobel wrote that the Peace Prize should, among other criteria, be awarded to whoever had done most for the "abolition or reduction of standing armies". In its application of this criterion in recent decades, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has concentrated on the struggle to diminish the significance of nuclear arms in international politics, with a view to their abolition. That the world has achieved little in this respect makes active opposition to nuclear arms all the more important today.

Oslo, 7 October 2005

Last update: 28 Jan 2021

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