LÄNSSTYRELSEN              DECISION              
I STOCKHOLMS LÄN                        Date                             Reference
Enheten för tillsyn                               2012-03-21               20622-3359-2012
Mikael Wiman
08-7854255

The Board of the Nobel Foundation
Box 5232
102 45 STOCKHOLM

Question re compliance with purpose in the Nobel Foundation

Decision

The County Board decides to dismiss the case from further handling.

Summary of the case

On January 30, 2012 the County Board requested the Nobel Foundation to clarify its views on information from Fredrik S. Heffermehl regarding deviations of the Nobel Committee in its compliance with the peace prize purpose. The Board was also invited to comment on what Heffermehl expressed in another letter

The Nobel Foundation responded to the requests on March 8.

Considerations

In a self-managing foundation, the Board is responsible for ensuring that the Foundation statutes are being observed. Among the most important rules of a Foundation is the purpose and how to fulfill it. The Nobel Foundation statutes, founded in Alfred Nobel's testament, includes i.a. provisions for a peace prize to be awarded, and that the selection of winners should be managed by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Storting.

According to the Foundations Act, which came into force on 1 January 1996, the Board of Directors bears the ultimate responsibility for the management of assets and the fulfillment other provisions, for instance regarding the purpose.

The special design of the Nobel Foundation, with a board that is in charge of management, and with separate prize awarders (Committees for the various Nobel Prizes), does not in the view of the County Board contain any aspect that differs from past rules on the division of responsibility in a foundation. The various prize awarders (the Nobel committees) have not born ultimate responsibility neither for management of Foundation assets nor for compliance with other regulations such as e.g. the statutes on the purpose.

The design instead constitutes a clear division of labor and competence; the efforts to collect data, examine nominees against the criteria on the purpose as well as to decide on winner/s and other tasks rest with the Committee. Nevertheless, the responsibility for ensuring that Foundation assets, consisting of the prize amount, is being used in accordance with the statutory purpose always rests with the Board of the Foundation.

The Nobel Foundation's response states that the Board is responsible for compliance with the statutory purpose, thereby understood that the Board shall intervene if the committee operates in a way that the Foundation considers not complying with the statutory purpose. The by-laws of the Foundation does not contain any regulations on how and when such intervention shall take place. The Foundations Act as well does not contain any regulation as to how the board of a foundation shall take action against subordinate bodies.

The Nobel Committee for the peace prize claims in the annex to the Foundation's response that in the awarding of a prize it is independent and not to be instructed. This is not, however, in the view of the County Board, compatible with the board of directors of the Foundation bearing the ultimate responsibility for compliance with the purpose. If the board finds that a committee has selected a winner that differs from the Foundation's regulations on that prize, the Board has an obligation to intervene.

In its supervision of foundations the County Board strives for the boards to make determined efforts and improve among other the fulfillment of purpose. This should include that they analyze and interpret the prescribed purpose to be able to develop criteria and assessment grounds to assist the practical application of the Regulations. Without such a focus there is a risk that the fulfillment of purpose will become arbitrary and in the longer term differ from what the creator intended with the statement of purpose. Another part of a foundation's development work should be to secure the quality of the implementation and that the division of responsibilities and powers becomes clear to everyone involved in the efforts of the foundation to implement the purpose.

The foundation Act does not specify clear guidelines on how the work to secure quality should be performed.

In its recurring review of the foundations the County Board checks how the foundation board meets its own by-laws and the provisions in the Foundations Act. If then it can be assumed that a foundation may be violating laws and regulations or that members of the board in other ways violate restrictions or neglect their obligations the County Board shall intervene.

The County Board´s evaluation

The County Board deems that the Board of the Nobel Foundation has presented an acceptable description of its responsibility and how it is divided between the Board and the prize awarders (The Nobel committees). The Foundation's response also permits the County Board to presume that the Board fulfills its obligation both to examine how the Nobel committees work complies with the regulations on the purpose, and to react if a Nobel committee in the view of the Board should not meet the instructions on the purpose in the will of Alfred Nobel.

Thus there is at this point no reason for the County Board to initiate further action against the work of the Foundation to fulfill the purpose, and the matter will be written off.

This decision was made by the Head of the Department Åsa Ryding and the Head of the Supervision Unit Eva Lundgren Axell. Rapporteur in the case was County Assessor Mikael Wiman

(sign.)                                                                        (sign.)

Åsa Ryding                                                   Mikael Wiman

Fredrik S. Heffermehl, Oslo
Norwegian lawyer (LLM from NYU) and author
(fredpax-at-online.no - phone +47 917 44 783



Oslo, March 26, 2012

Lars Heikensten, Director
Nobel Foundation
Stockholm



County Administration - Nobel prizes and original purpose

Dear Lars,

Sorry we could not meet before the weekend, but during my day in Stockholm I got a chance to discuss the March 21 decision of the Länsstyrelsen (the Stockholm County Administration) with its foundations expert, Mikael Wiman. He gave a detailed explanation of their conditions for dismissing the case, with strong criticism in a gentle form: While pronouncing no opinion on wrongs in the past, the Authority signals that a major overhaul of the Nobel Foundation operations is necessary to ensure that future prizes are loyal to Alfred Nobel.

The County Administration relies on the Foundation´s "acceptable description" of its own responsibility and its relation to the five Nobel committees. It rejected the claim of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that it is independent and shall not take instructions from anyone. The two Norwegian Nobel bodies, Parliament and the Nobel Committee, both are under the superior authority of the Board of the Nobel Foundation.

The Authority also presupposes that the Foundation will initiate a systematic process to work with and improve a.o. the realization of its purpose. To improve the practical application of the by-laws the measures should include an analysis and interpretation of Nobel´s various statements on the purpose "to develop the criteria and the factors for evaluation." Without this, writes the Administration, there is a risk that implementation over time will become arbitrary and that "compliance with the purpose will over time deviate from what the founder (Nobel) had in mind with his statement of purpose."

I note here that the prizes have been awarded for 111 years without a precaution that the Authority now considers necessary to ensure realization of the purpose "over time", a truth for which there is ample evidence in my books on the peace prize. In particular it is unfortunate and consequential that the Norwegian parliament leaves the selections of the five committee members to the political parties without any clarification of the purpose of the prize and desirable qualifications.

Wiman foresaw that as a result of the Foundation´s work to improve quality it may have to demand the Norwegian Parliament to replace present members with persons familiar with and loyal to the work of "the champions of peace" in the understanding Nobel had of this expression.

It would seem useful for the Board to signal at the earliest convenience a will to comply in good faith with the orders of the Authority by making it clear that "peace" and "peace work" are not valid concepts to determine what Nobel intended. The key word to focus on is "fredsförfäktare (champions of peace)," an expression today found only in the will, not in the by-laws. My research has rediscovered this word and shown that it is the most precise expression of the purpose and the recipients Nobel had in mind.

There can be no doubt that the provisions seeking to establish a global peace order, a demilitarization of international politics based on global law and institutions, was the most important provision in the 1895 will of Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel for the "greatest benefit to mankind." By order of the Swedish foundations Authority it is now clarified that the Foundation has the main responsibility to ensure that the purpose is realized.

I must again repeat that a protracted struggle about the content of the peace prize can only hurt the Nobel institutions and I hope to see clear signals in the near future that the Foundation takes so visible step to live up to its responsibility that I can rest my case.


Sincerely yours,

Fredrik S. Heffermehl
http://www.nobelwill.org


cc. Länsstyrelsen (The Stockholm Administrative Board, Foundations Unit),
President Dag-Terje Andersen, Stortinget (Parliament of Norway)
Thorbjørn Jagland, Chair of the Nobel Committee.