The Nobel Peace Prize 2016 is awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end.

In this breakfast seminar, we will discuss the long road to peace in Colombia. The day before the award ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize it is fitting to contemplate what the 2016 Peace Prize has meant for the Colombian peace process, including:

  • The immediate reactions to the Peace Prize by different actors
  • The impact on the re-ignition of the peace negotiations
  • The potential impact on the shape of the new peace accord and its mode of adoption

The Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 was a ‘classic prize’, in the sense that it rewarded the commitment to end armed conflict though sustained dialogue. Yet, it was also a bold prize, rewarding a peace process that was seemingly stalled, with the announcement coming just days after a referendum in which a slim majority voted no to the treaty. The parties returned to the negotiation table, revised the treaty thoroughly, and the new version has received the support or the Parliament. The sheer timing indicates that the Nobel Prize may have been stimulating rapid reengagement, but critical voices do ask whether the new treaty, in the absence of a referendum, has sufficient legitimacy.

Key Contributors

Angelika Rettberg is an associate professor at the Political Science Department at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá – Colombia), where she leads the Research Program on Armed Conflict and Peacebuilding and the M.A. Program on Peacebuilding. Her research has focused on the private sector as a political actor and, specifically, on business behavior in contexts of armed conflict and peacebuilding. She has also been involved in research about other aspects of the political economy of armed conflict and peacebuilding, such as the relationship between legal resources, armed conflict, and criminality in several Colombian regions as well as the dynamics of transitional justice.

Comments by: Pontus Ohrstedt of the UN Regional Office in Bogota

Chair: Kristian Berg Harpviken, PRIO Director

A light breakfast will be served.

Press inquiries: Iver Kleiven, PRIO. 993 42 800 - ivekle@prio.org