Right Livelihood Award

Since 1985, the ceremony has taken place in Stockholm's old Parliament building, in the days before the traditional Nobel prizes are awarded in the same city. A group of Swedish Parliamentarians from different parties host the ceremony; in 2009 European Commissioner Margot Wallström co-hosted the ceremony. However, in 2014 when it became public that one of the recipients of the 2014 prize was whistleblower Edward Snowden, the ceremonial group was disinvited from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs building in Stockholm.[10]

In 2019, marking the 40th anniversary of the foundation of the Award, the ceremony was held at Cirkus before a live audience of more than 1,200 people. World-renowned artists such as José González and Ane Brun were among the night's performers.[11]

Some media refer to the prize as the Alternative Nobel Prize,[3] and the prize is frequently understood as a critique of the traditional Nobel prizes.[9]

The prize differs significantly from the Nobel Prizes:

• it is not a fulfillment of Alfred Nobel's bequest and thus not one of Nobel's own prizes;
• it has an open nomination process (anyone can nominate anyone else, except close relatives or their own organizations);[12]
• it is not limited to specific categories;[4]
• the prize money is considerably lower than that of the Nobel Prize. Currently it is €200,000 compared to about €1,000,000 for a Nobel Prize;
• the funds for the prizes now come from donations[1] while the Nobel Prizes come from the revenue of Alfred Nobel's fortune. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (which is technically not a Nobel Prize) is financed by the Sveriges Riksbank.

The 1994 award given to Dr. Sudarshan photographed in BR Hills

Jakob von Uexküll, a philanthropist, sold his stamp collection worth one million US dollars, which provided the initial funding for the award. Before establishing the award in 1980, von Uexkull had tried to persuade the Nobel Foundation to establish new prizes to be awarded together with the Nobel Prizes. He suggested new prize categories to be created: one in ecology and one in development.[13] Like the Nobel Economics Prize, this would have been possible with an amendment to the Nobel Foundation statutes and funding of the prize amount completely separate from Nobel's fortune. The Nobel Prize amount was 880,000 Swedish kronor at that time,[14] which corresponded to 195,000 US dollars.[15] However, as a result of the debate that followed the establishment of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (first awarded in 1969), the Nobel Foundation had decided not to associate the Nobel Prize with any additional awards, so von Uexküll's proposal was rejected.[16]

From 1980-2019, the foundation presented awards to 178 Laureates from 70 countries.[17] Its self-described purpose is to bestow prizes and thus publicize the work of recipients' local solutions to worldwide problems.[18]

• Right livelihood
• List of awards for contributions to society
• List of environmental awards
• List of human rights awards
• List of humanitarian and service awards
• List of civil awards and decorations

• Pathiravitana, S. (2007-11-08). A Great Son of Lanka. Sri Lanka Daily News, 8 November 2007. A history of the award. Retrieved on 2008-06-03 from https://web.archive.org/web/20080110104454/http://www.dailynews.lk/2007/11/08/fea01.asp.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Right Livelihood Award.

• Official website
• Right Livelihood Laureates Discuss Their Battles for Social Justice – video report by Democracy Now!