The Tunisian quartet is made up of 4 organisations -
- Tunisian General Labour Union,
- Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts,
- Tunisian Human Rights League and
- Tunisian Order of Lawyers.
It was created in 2013, two years after the revolution, when security in the country was threatened following the assassination of two key politicians and deadly clashes between Islamists and secular parts of society.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Tunisia's National Dialogue Quartet for helping the country's transition to democracy.
The Nobel Committee said the group of civil society organisations had made a "decisive contribution" to democracy after the 2011 revolution.
It said it helped establish a political process when the country "was on the brink of civil war".
Tunisia's uprising was the first and most successful of the Arab Spring.
While other countries - Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Syria - either reverted to authoritarian rule or descended into violence and chaos, only Tunisia has managed a successful transition to democracy.
The Quartet is credited with creating a national dialogue between the country's Islamist and secular coalition parties amid deepening political and economic crisis in 2013.
Tunisia's revolution - also known as the Jasmine Revolution - began in late 2010 and led to the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, followed by the country's first free democratic electionsin 2014
Tunisians held their first freely contested presidential election in December 2014, which was won by 88-year-old Essebsi of the secular-leaning Nidaa Tounes party.
According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding year "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
Alfred Nobel's will further specified that the prize be awarded by a committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian Parliament
It is unclear why Nobel wished the Peace Prize to be administered in Norway, which was ruled in union with Sweden at the time of Alfred Nobel's death.
Each year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee specifically invites qualified people to submit nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize
The statutes of the Nobel Foundation specify categories of individuals who are eligible to make nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize
These nominators are:
- Members of national assemblies and governments and members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
- Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Court of Justice at the Hague
- Members of Institut de Droit International
- University professors of history, social sciences, philosophy, law, and theology, university presidents, and directors of peace research and international affairs institutes
- Former Recipients, including board members of organizations that have previously received the prize
- Present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
- Former permanent advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Institute
Despite having been nominated 5 times(1937, 1938, 1939, 1947, an 1948) Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi never won the Prize.
Following his assassination in 1948, the committee considered awarding it to him posthumously but decided against it and instead withheld the Prize that year with the explanation that "there was no suitable living candidate.
In 1961,Dag Hammarskjold(Sweden) who died after his nomination but several months before the announcement, became the only laureate to be recognised posthumously; following this, the statutes were changed to make a future posthumous prize nearly impossible
In 1962 Linus Pauling (USA)the Nobel Peace Prize winner is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes; he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954.
In 1973,Le Duc Tho(Vietnam) declined the Prize, because "he was not in a position to accept the Prize, citing the situation in Vietnam as his reason."
The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize went to Malala Yousafzai(Pakistan) and Kailash Satyarthi(India)
At 17 years of age,Malala Yousafzai, the 2014 recipient, is the youngest to be awarded the Peace Prize.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded at a ceremony in the Oslo City Hall
on December 10, the date on which Alfred Nobel died.
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