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Five members of Norway’s Nobel Committee could hold the key to United States President Donald Trump’s much-desired moment of glory – being named this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Each year, the Nobel Committee, whose members are elected by Norway’s parliament, award the prize, established under the will of Alfred Nobel, to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.

Nominations for this year’s award closed on January 31, and the selection of the winner is shrouded in secrecy.

This year’s winner will be announced on Friday at 11am local time (09:00 GMT), at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo.

Since he returned to office in January, US President Trump claims he has single-handedly ended eight wars around the world. He has repeatedly suggested that he deserves to win this year’s prize and has claimed it would be a “big insult” to America if he does not win.

So who are the five members of the Nobel Committee making this year’s crucial decision?

Who are the five Nobel Peace Prize judges?

The Nobel Committee was established by the Norwegian Storting (Norway’s Parliament) in 1897 and is tasked with picking the laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The members of the committee are elected for a period of six years and can be re-elected.

According to the Nobel Peace Prize’s rules, members of the committee represent the strength of the different political parties in Norway’s Parliament, but cannot be sitting members of the parliament. Once elected, the committee picks its own chairman and deputy chairman, and the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute serves as the committee’s secretary.

This year’s Nobel Committee members are:

Jorgen Watne Frydnes

Frydnes is the chair of the Nobel Committee.

At 41, he is the youngest-ever chair of the committee. He was appointed in 2021 and will remain a member until 2026.

Frydnes has spent his career working as a human rights advocate. He has also served as secretary-general of PEN Norway, a group that promotes freedom of expression.

He has worked with the nongovernment organisation (NGO), Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders, or MSF), and is a member of the human rights NGO, Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

While Frydnes is officially nonpolitical, he is known to be supportive of Norway’s ruling Labour Party. He managed a memorial to the 69 Labour activist victims of the 2011 Utoeya massacre carried out by a Norwegian right-wing extremist. Frydnes has played an important role in rebuilding the island of Utoeya since then.

Asle Toje

Aged 51, Toje is the vice chair of the Nobel Committee. He has been a member since 2018 and was reappointed to the committee for the period of 2024-2029.

He is considered a conservative and served as research director at the Norwegian Nobel Institute before joining the Nobel Committee. He has also published a book called The European Union as a Small Power: After the Post-Cold War.

Anne Enger

Enger, 75, has been a member of the committee since 2018 and has also been reappointed for the period from 2021 to 2026.

She studied nursing and began her career teaching the subject. She later switched to politics, supporting Norway’s Centre Party.

Enger served as chief of the Ministry of Culture and deputy to the prime minister of Norway between 1997 and 1999, acting prime minister in 1998 and became acting chief of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy briefly in 1999. She has been county governor of the region of Ostfold since 2004.

Enger has also headed the secretariat of the People’s Movement against Free Abortion in Norway.

Kristin Clemet

Clemet, 68, was appointed to the committee in 2021 and will be a member till 2026.

She is a Norwegian politician for Hoyre, Norway’s Conservative Party.

An economist by profession, she was twice an adviser to Norway’s past prime minister, Kare Willoch of the Conservative Party, and has served as minister of education between 2001 and 2005.

Gry Larsen

Larsen, 49, is a former Labour state secretary in the Foreign Ministry and head of Norwegian humanitarian organisation CARE Norway, which advocates for global women’s rights. She has previously criticised Trump’s cuts to foreign aid spending.

She was appointed to the committee for the period of 2024-2029.

How have they voted in the past?

According to the rules of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee receives nominations from members of governments around the world, or the International Court of Justice in The Hague and university professors of of history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology and religion, among others, by the end of January but are not permitted to reveal the names of the nominees until a winner is announced. In March, the committee prepares a short-list of candidates and announces the winner in October.

The selection process takes place in complete secrecy. Information on how individual members vote is also not revealed.

“We discuss, we argue, there is a high temperature,” Frydnes, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told the BBC, which got access to the final meeting of the committee this year.

“But also, of course, we are civilised, and we try to make a consensus-based decision every year,” he added.

Since Frydnes became chair of the committee in the group has given the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov in 2021 for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression; Belarusian dissident Ales Bialiatski in 2022 for protecting fundamental rights, and Iran’s Narges Mohammadi in 2023 for fighting for women’s rights.

Last year, Frydnes and the committee announced Japan’s Nihon Hidankyo, a group of survivors of the 1945 US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the winner of the Peace Prize.

“I grew up after the end of the Cold War, when democracy seemed unstoppable and nuclear disarmament realistic,” Frydnes said when he presented the award.

Have any of the members been involved in any controversy?

Toje and Enger were also on the committee when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Prize in 2019 for his role in ending the 20-year military stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea. After Ahmed’s win, Ethiopia unleashed a new offensive in Tigray in 2020.

“There are always some people who feel that this laureate was the wrong one,” Toje had said at an event hosted by the International Peace Institute (IPI) that same year.

“Once the announcement has been made, we realise it lives its own life … if the Nobel Peace Prize didn’t spark outrage and strong emotions, well, we wouldn’t be living up to our reputation,” he added.

In 2023, Indian media also reported that Toje had endorsed India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, for the Nobel Peace Prize. But BOOM, a fact-checking news organisation in the country, found that it was a false claim and that Toje had never made any such statement.

Back in 1994, Enger had voted against Norway’s European Union membership. In her view, joining the EU would result in Norway losing its traditions and democracy. Enger has also championed anti-abortion campaigns but has been unsuccessful in reversing Norway’s abortion rights.

Meanwhile, Larsen has faced criticism from the Norwegian Israel Centre Against Anti-Semitism (NIS). In 2006, the institute wrote a letter to the former Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, accusing Larsen, his political adviser at the time, of demanding “a full boycott of Israel”.

“She was appointed as political adviser despite her being responsible for anti-Israel activities,” the letter had said. It is not clear if Larsen responded to this claim.

What do they think of Trump?

Trump has been desperate to win the prize ever since US President Barack Obama won it in 2009.

Besides reiterating that he deserves this year’s prize since he has resolved at least “seven wars” (now eight wars with the Gaza peace deal announced on Thursday), the US president has also called Norwegian diplomats, including former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, who is the country’s current finance minister, to lobby them for the Prize.

But Frydnes says the committee doesn’t give in to such pressure, and a decision is always made independently.

“Every year, we receive thousands of letters, emails, requests, people saying ‘this is the one you should choose’ – so to have that campaign, the pressure … isn’t really something new,” he told the BBC.

Frydnes did not openly refer to Trump in the interview, but in the past, he has called out the US president for cracking down on “democratic nations”.

Anne Enger has remained entirely tight-lipped about her preferences for the Nobel Peace Prize, while Larsen has criticised Trump for cutting USAID and also for how he talks about women and human rights.

Clemet is also a Trump sceptic. “After just over 100 days as president, [Trump] is well underway in dismantling American democracy, and he is doing everything he can to tear down the liberal and rules-based world order,” she wrote in May.

Toje, on the other hand, attended Trump’s presidential inauguration earlier this year and called it a “f****** great party”. He has also said that Western liberals should take a more “nuanced” approach to him and the MAGA political movement.

However, there is no indication of whether he could support Trump for the prize. He has also brushed off any sort of influence from lobbying.

“These types of influence campaigns have a rather more negative effect than a positive one, because we talk about it on the committee. Some candidates push for it really hard, and we do not like it,” he told The National newspaper.

“We are used to work[ing] in a locked room without being attempted to be influenced,” he added.

Has this been a particularly tough year for Norway’s Nobel Committee?

Amid ongoing wars and democratic repression in some countries, as well as Trump’s pressure to be awarded the prize, Frydnes told the BBC that he and the other members feel that “the world is listening, and the world is discussing, and discussing how we can achieve peace is a good thing”.

“And we have to stay strong and principled in our choices … that’s our job.”

Within Norway, however, worries have arisen about what the US president might do if he does not win the prize.

The US has already imposed 15 percent tariffs on the country’s exports.

The Trump administration also told CNBC last month that the US was “very troubled” after Norway – which has an approximately $2 trillion sovereign fund – announced it would divest from US company Caterpillar because of its links to Israel’s war on Gaza.

But in an interview with Bloomberg on October 3, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said Norway’s government was not involved in the Nobel Peace Prize decisions.

Who are the other contenders?

The Nobel Committee has received 338 nominees for the prize, out of which 244 are individuals and 94 are organisations.

But according to the rules of the Nobel Peace Prize, the “committee does not confirm the names of nominees, neither to the media nor to the candidates themselves. There are cases where names of candidates appear in the media, either as a result of sheer speculation or because individuals themselves report to have nominated specific candidates”.

Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms, a volunteer group helping civilians in the war-torn country, and Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, who died last year in a Russian prison, are seen as potential contenders.

According to bookies like Ladbrokes and oddsmakers, Trump and the Sudanese group are favourites.

Amid speculation, Nina Graeger, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, told Al Jazeera that according to tradition, every year she comes up with a list of five potential candidates.

“My list this year includes Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms, who are local Sudanese organisers who provide humanitarian support to committees affected by the war in the country. These voluntary groups have set up communal kitchens, supported evacuations, offered medical care, fixed infrastructure and provided other services to communities,” she said.

She noted that awarding this year’s Peace Prize to a deserving humanitarian initiative such as the Emergency Response Rooms would “highlight the critical importance of access to lifesaving aid in times of conflict, and the power of everyday citizens to serve humanity in difficult times”.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is also a worthy potential recipient of the Peace Prize, she said.

Tuvalu’s Minister of Climate Change Maina Talia has told Al Jazeera that his country is fighting to stay above rising sea levels and needs “real commitments” from other countries that will allow Tuvaluans to “stay in Tuvalu” as the climate crisis worsens.

The low-lying nation of nine atolls and islands, which is situated between Australia and Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, is fighting to maintain its sovereignty by exploring new avenues in international diplomacy.

But, right now, the country needs help just to stay above water.

“Coming from a country that is barely not one metre above the sea, reclaiming land and building sea walls and building our resilience is the number one priority for us,” Talia told Al Jazeera in an interview during the recent United Nations General Assembly in New York.

“We cannot delay any more. Climate finance is important for our survival,” Talia said.

“It’s not about building [over the] next two or three years to come, but right now, and we need it now, in order for us to respond to the climate crisis,” he said.

Talia, who is also Tuvalu’s minister of home affairs and the environment, said the issue of financing will be a key issue at the upcoming UN COP30 climate meeting in Belem, in the Brazilian Amazon, in November.

‘You pollute, you pay’

Tuvalu is one of many countries already pushing for a better deal on climate financing at this year’s COP, after many advocates left last year’s meeting in Azerbaijan disappointed by the unambitious $300bn target set by richer countries.

Describing the COP climate meeting as having become more like a “festival for the oil-producing countries”, Talia said Tuvalu is also exploring a range of alternative initiatives, from a push to create the world’s first fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty to seeking to add its entire cultural heritage to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Representatives of oil-producing countries are now attending the COP climate meetings in “big numbers”, Talia said, in order to try and “really bury our voice as small developing countries”.

“They take control of the narrative. They take control of the process. They try to water down all the texts. They try to put a stop to climate finance,” Talia said.

“It’s about time that we should call out to the world that finance is important for us to survive,” he said.

“The polluter pay principle is still there. You pollute, you pay,” he added.

Talia also said that it was frustrating to see his own country struggling to survive, while other countries continue to spend billions of dollars on weapons for current and future wars.

“Whilst your country is facing this existential threat, it’s quite disappointing to see that the world is investing billions and trillions of dollars in wars, in conflicts,” he said.

A report released this week by the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) found that 39 small island countries, which are home to some 65 million people, already need about $12bn a year to help them cope with the effects of climate change.

That figure is many times more than the roughly $2bn a year they are collectively receiving now, and which represents just 0.2 percent of the amount spent on global climate finance worldwide.

GCA, a Rotterdam-based nonprofit organisation, also found that island states are already experiencing an average $1.7bn in annual economic losses due to climate change.

Tuvalu is not only focused on its own survival – the island state is considered to be facing one of the most severe existential threats from rising sea levels – it is also continuing to find ways to fight climate change globally.

“That’s why Tuvalu is leading the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Talia said.

About 16 countries have now signed on to the treaty, with Colombia offering to host the first international conference for the phase-out of fossil fuels next year.

“We see its relevance for us,” Talia said of the treaty.

“We want to grow in number in order for us to come up with a treaty, apart from the Paris Agreement,” he said.

‘We need to hold the industrialised countries accountable’

Even as Tuvalu, a country with a population of less than 10,000 people, is fighting for immediate action on climate change, it is also making preparations for its own uncertain future, including creating a digital repository of its culture so that nothing is lost to the sea.

Talia, who is also Tuvalu’s minister for culture, said that he made the formal preliminary submission to UNESCO two weeks before the UNGA meeting for “the whole of Tuvalu to be listed” on the World Heritage List.

“If we are to disappear, which is something that we don’t want to anticipate, but if worst comes to worst, at least you know our values, our culture, heritage, are well secured,” he told Al Jazeera.

Likewise, Talia said his country doesn’t see its 2023 cooperation pact with Australia, which also includes the world’s first climate change migration visa, as an indication that the island’s future is sealed.

“I don’t look at the Falepili Agreement as a way of escaping the issue of climate change, but rather a pathway,” he said.

“A pathway that we will allow our people in Tuvalu to get good education, trained, and then return home,” he said, referring to the agreement giving some Tuvaluans access to education, healthcare and unlimited travel to Australia.

The agreement text includes an acknowledgement from both parties that “the statehood and sovereignty of Tuvalu will continue, and the rights and duties inherent thereto will be maintained, notwithstanding the impact of climate change-related sea level rise”.

Talia also said that a recent ruling from the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, declared that states have a responsibility to address climate change by cooperating to cut emissions, following through on climate agreements, and protecting vulnerable populations and ecosystems from harm.

The ICJ ruling “really changed the whole context of climate change debates”, Talia said.

“The highest court has spoken, the highest court has delivered the judgement,” he said of the case, which was brought before the ICJ by Tuvalu’s neighbour Vanuatu.

“So it’s just a matter of, how are we going to live that, or weave that, into our climate policies,” he said.

Nearly three weeks of striking bus drivers and roadblocks by angry farmers have put Ecuador President Daniel Noboa in one of the tensest moments of his presidency.

The outcry comes in response to the government’s increase in diesel fuel costs, after a subsidy was cut last month.

With no signs of dialogue after 18 days, one protester has been killed, numerous protesters and authorities injured, and more than 100 people arrested.

The army announced a large deployment to the capital on Thursday, saying it would prevent vandalism and destruction of property. As many as 5,000 troops were being deployed after dozens of protesters had marched at various sites in the city earlier in the day.

Though the demonstrations called for by Ecuador’s largest Indigenous organisation, CONAIE, are supposed to be nationwide, the most acute impact has been in the northern part of the country, especially Imbabura province, where Noboa won in April’s election with 52 percent of the vote.

On one side is “a president who assumes that after winning the elections he has all of the power at his disposal, who has authoritarian tendencies and no disposition for dialogue”, said Farith Simon, a law professor at the Universidad San Francisco in Quito.

On the other side, he said, is “an Indigenous sector that has shown itself to be uncompromising and is looking to co-govern through force”.

Protesters attacked Noboa’s motorcade with rocks on Tuesday, adding to the tension. The administration denounced it as an assassination attempt.

The Indigenous organisation CONAIE, however, rejected that assertion. It insists its protests are peaceful and that it is the government that is responding with force.

What led to the demonstrations?

The protests were organised by CONAIE, an acronym that translates to the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador.

The group mobilised its supporters after Noboa decreed the elimination of a subsidy on diesel on September 12.

Diesel is critical to the agricultural, fishing and transport sectors in Ecuador, where many Indigenous people work. The move raised the cost of a gallon (3.8 litres) of diesel to $2.80 from $1.80, which CONAIE said hit the poor the hardest.

The government tried to calm the backlash by offering some handouts, and unions did not join the demonstrations. The confederation rejected the government’s “gifts” and called for a general strike.

What are the protests like?

The Indigenous confederation is a structured movement that played a central role in violent uprisings in 2019 and 2022 that nearly ousted then-Presidents Lenin Moreno and Guillermo Lasso.

Its methods are not always seen as productive, particularly when protests turn violent.

Daniel Crespo, an international relations professor at the Universidad de los Hemisferios in Quito, said the confederation’s demands to return the fuel subsidy, cut a tax and stop mining are efforts to “impose their political agenda”.

The confederation says it’s just trying to fight for a “decent life” for all Ecuadorians, even if that means opposing Noboa’s economic and social policies.

What are Noboa’s policies?

Noboa is a 37-year-old, politically conservative millionaire heir to a banana fortune. He started his second term in May amid high levels of violence.

One of the steps he has taken is raising the value-added tax rate to 15 percent from 12 percent, arguing that the additional funds are needed to fight crime. He has also fired thousands of government workers and restructured the executive branch.

The president has opted for a heavy-handed approach to making these changes and rejected calls for dialogue. He said, “The law awaits those who choose violence. Those who act like criminals will be treated like criminals.”

What has been the fallout?

A protester died last week, and soldiers were caught on video attacking a man who tried to help him.

The images, along with generally aggressive actions by security forces confronting protesters, have fuelled anger and drawn criticism about excessive use of force from organisations within Ecuador and abroad.

The Attorney General’s Office said it was investigating the protester’s death.

Experts warn that the situation could grow more violent if the protests that have largely been in rural areas arrive in the cities, especially the capital, where frustrated civilians could take to the streets to confront protesters.

The meeting was supposed to be the prelude to the purchase of Finnish icebreaker ships.

But as United States President Donald Trump welcomed Finland’s President Alexander Stubb to the Oval Office on Thursday, he veered into a discussion of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) — and his ongoing feud with one of its members, Spain.

At a NATO summit in June, Spain was the most prominent holdout against Trump’s push to increase defence spending among member states.

Trump has long sought for all NATO members to commit 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to building up their military assets. But Spain successfully pushed for an exemption at June’s meeting, allowing its expenditures to remain around the previous benchmark of 2 percent.

That resistance lingered on Trump’s mind at Thursday’s meeting, as he discussed the US commitment to NATO with Stubb.

“As you know, I requested that they pay 5 percent, not 2 percent,” Trump said of the NATO members.

“And most people thought that was not gonna happen. And it happened virtually unanimously. We had one laggard. It was Spain. Spain. You have to call them and find out: Why are they a laggard?”

He then mused about taking retribution: “They have no excuse not to do this, but that’s all right. Maybe you should throw them out of NATO, frankly.”

It was a bitter note in an otherwise friendly meeting with Stubb, whom Trump hosted in March at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Since his first term as president, Trump has wavered in his public comments about NATO, at times embracing the alliance and, at other moments, rejecting it as “obsolete”.

But seated next to Stubb and Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, Trump took a decidedly enthusiastic approach to defending Finland, one of the newest members of NATO. It joined the alliance in April 2023, followed by Sweden less than a year later.

Reporters at Thursday’s Oval Office meeting pressed Trump about what he might do if Russia expands its war in Ukraine to other countries in Europe.

In Finnish politics, the spectre of Russian interference looms large: The former Soviet Union invaded Finland in the 1930s, and since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, relations between the two countries have soured even further.

Finland closed its shared border with Russia in 2024, an international divide that stretches across 1,340 kilometres, or 841 miles.

“What if Russia and Vladimir Putin attacks Finland? Would you defend Finland?” one reporter asked Trump on Thursday.

Trump did not mince words in his reply. “I would. Yes, I would. They’re a member of NATO.”

He nevertheless cast doubt on the prospect of a Russian invasion under Putin.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t think he’s going to do that. I think the chances of that are very, very small,” he said, turning to Stubb. “You have a very powerful military, one of the best.”

When pushed to specify how he might defend Finland in case of an attack, Trump offered one word in reply: “Vigorously.”

Those warm remarks offered a stark contrast with his approach to Spain. In the wake of the June NATO summit, for instance, Trump called Spain’s position “hostile” and threatened its economy, pledging to make it pay “twice as much” in tariffs to the US.

“I think Spain is terrible, what they’ve done,” he told reporters, accusing the country of taking a “free ride” at other countries’ expense. “That economy could be blown right out of the water with something bad happening.”