A galactic Nobel? Experts float the International Space Station among contenders for the Peace Prize

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.

Not-so-outlandish, prognosticators say: The Nobel Peace Prize this year could go galactic, with an award to the International Space Station. But terrestrial contenders loom too, including U.S. President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, emergency teams in Sudan, children’s advocates in Ukraine and two top international courts, experts say.

The annual guessing game about who will win the prize, often called the most prestigious award on the planet, is revving up ahead of the Norwegian Nobel Committee's Oct. 9 announcement of the winner in Oslo.

Predicting the outcome is inherently speculative. Some surprising and controversialchoices have appeared over the years. The committee received 287 candidates for this year’s prize, and just over a quarter of them are organizations.

Experts say the committee, in its process of awarding the prize, typically focuses on the durability of peace, the promotion of international fraternity and the quiet work of institutions that strengthen those goals.

Haakon Gjerløw, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, is considered a top forecaster. He says the ISS — well, the organization behind it — is a rare symbol of global cooperation in a quest toward the heavens at a time when multilateralism is crumbling and many countries have retreated into narrower national interests on Earth.

The institute's annual watch list is one of the sources that most informs pundits and punters about the top contenders.

Trump has made no secret of his desire to win the prize, and has been nominated again, but could be viewed as a controversial choice after the U.S., along with Israel, launched an ongoing war on Iran in February.

Canada's Carney has made a mark internationally this year, in large part by standing up to Trump on issues like U.S. tariffs.

Gjerløw's list this year also features Ukrainian children’s advocate Mykola Kuleba and Save the Children; Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms, a grassroots relief network; and the Committee to Protect Journalists after the deadliest two years for reporters since record-keeping began nearly 45 years ago.

The International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, jointly, also got a nod. The ICC has faced criticism and controversy among some, and respect from others, over its arrest warrants against leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump has long criticized the ICC, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in July announced a campaign to “dismantle the threat … posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.” Later that month, the ICC's chief prosecutor was removed from office over sexual misconduct allegations.

Gjerløw said the committee’s choice is complicated by recent turmoil after 2025 laureate María Corina Machado of Venezuela, in a symbolic gesture, presented her prize to Trump days after U.S. forces removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power.

This year's peace prize comes in an era marked by the most war and conflict in decades, including in Sudan, Ukraine, Yemen, Iran and the Middle East.

Shawn Davies, a senior analyst at the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, which monitors conflicts, cited “increased international tensions and changes in the global security order” that he linked to an erosion of U.S. willingness to enforce international rules. Washington has gone from guarantor of the postwar order to a violator of it in some cases, he said.

“I don’t even think his own base would believe” Trump could win the prize now, “given how he’s stuck in what looks like a forever war in Iran,” Davies said.

Jody Williams, who won the 1997 Peace Prize jointly with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, says she hopes for a continued trend toward awarding the prize to women. Only 20 of the prize’s 112 individual laureates have been women in its 125-year history.

In the past 15 years, eight women have won the prize individually, compared to just six men.

Among names of the women circulating in prediction markets this year are Gaza surgeon Sara al-Saqqa and Yulia Navalnaya, the Russian opposition figure and widow of Alexei Navalny.

Nobel week kicks off Monday with the announcement of the medicine prize, followed by the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. After Friday’s peace prize is awarded, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on Oct. 12.

The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), whether for an individual, small group of laureates or organization.

When it comes to the peace prize selection, expect political fallout no matter who wins.

“Trump will be unhappy whoever gets the Nobel,” said Nelson Wiseman, a University of Toronto professor emeritus. “If Carney got it, it would make relations with Canada rockier than they are.”