- How did Dunant's improvised battlefield relief effort turn into the Geneva Conventions?
Human Rights Advocacy
Individuals and organizations defending human rights.
- What was the Institute's underlying theory of why codifying rules of war mattered, even if they could be broken?
- What did the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 actually attempt to codify about warfare?
- What lasting legal legacy did Louis Renault's work leave despite the conventions' fragility?
- Why did the South African government deny Lutuli a passport to travel to Oslo for the ceremony?
- How did Dunant's book A Memory of Solferino lead directly to the Geneva Convention of 1864?
- What do the 1949 updates to the Geneva Conventions actually cover?
- What technical task was René Cassin given by the UN Human Rights Commission in 1947?
- Why does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights carry influence despite having no enforcement mechanism?
- How has the Universal Declaration been used by courts, dissidents, and constitution writers since its adoption in 1948?
- What organizations did Seán MacBride found or lead before winning the Peace Prize?
- Why did the pairing of MacBride and Satō strike observers as an unusual kind of balance?
- What newspaper article by Peter Benenson led to the founding of Amnesty International, and what event prompted it?
- What methodology did Amnesty International use to advocate for prisoners of conscience by 1977?
- Why did the Nobel Committee single out Amnesty International's approach of documenting facts rather than using rhetoric?
- What was Servicio Paz y Justicia, and why was documenting human rights abuses in Latin America dangerous work in the 1970s?
- What happened to Adolfo Pérez Esquivel when the Argentine military junta arrested him in 1977?
- What happened to Maya civilians during Guatemala's internal armed conflict?
- How did Rigoberta Menchú Tum bring international attention to the violence in Guatemala?
- Why was the timing of the 1992 Peace Prize, on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's arrival, significant?
- Why were anti-personnel landmines designed to maim rather than kill?
- How did Jody Williams coordinate an international campaign from a Vermont farmhouse in the early 1990s?
- Which major powers declined to sign the Ottawa Treaty, and why does that matter?
- How many countries signed the Ottawa Treaty in December 1997?
- What is the Responsibility to Protect doctrine that Kofi Annan championed as UN Secretary-General?
- How many deaths and injuries did Peter Barss document from falling coconuts in Papua New Guinea?
- Why was Shirin Ebadi demoted from judge to a clerical post after the 1979 revolution?
- What were the Chain Murders, and how did Ebadi's legal work connect to them?
- How did the Iranian government respond to Ebadi winning the Nobel Peace Prize?
- How did Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement link environmental degradation to women's political standing in Kenya?
- What resistance did Maathai face from the Kenyan government under Daniel arap Moi?
- Why was Maathai's Nobel Peace Prize significant for the history of the award?
- Why was Pamuk prosecuted by the Turkish government the year before he won the Nobel?
- How did the existence of the gay bomb proposal come to public attention years later?
- How did Obama address the tension between receiving a peace prize while commanding forces in two wars?
- What methods did Kailash Satyarthi's organisation use to free more than 80,000 children from bonded labour?
- How did Malala Yousafzai's anonymous BBC Urdu blog turn into a public campaign for girls' education?
- How did ICAN's humanitarian argument against nuclear weapons differ from the traditional arms-control approach?
- What work did Denis Mukwege do at Panzi Hospital for survivors of wartime sexual violence?
- How did Nadia Murad's experience under ISIS captivity shape her advocacy work?
- Why did the Nobel committee pair a physician with a survivor-advocate for the Peace Prize?
- What reporting did Maria Ressa's Rappler do that led to criminal charges against her?
- How many Novaya Gazeta journalists were killed during Dmitry Muratov's editorship?
- What did Ressa and Muratov each do with their Nobel medals after winning?
- What work was the Center for Civil Liberties doing in Ukraine at the time of the award?
- Why was Narges Mohammadi unable to accept her own Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo?
- What activism led to Mohammadi's repeated arrests since 2011?
- How did the Iranian government respond to her winning the prize?