Trump’s Nobel prize yearnings – why he’s looking the wrong way

John Tobin – The New Daily
Jul 02, 2025

My 16-year-old son came home from school the other day and greeted me with “dad, are we going to have World War III?”

It was a bit confronting, as he’s generally more concerned with the footy scores than world events.

I reassured him that the bombing appeared to have settled down and there had been a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

“So, what’s going on then?” he asked.

“Do you really want me to explain?” I replied.

“Will it take less than three minutes?”

I gave him my three-minute version of the conflict and its historical context. He then walked off into the kitchen looking for food.

Personally, I had and still have a lot of questions about the conflict in the Middle East and its broader implications. I had been spending far too much time on my phone tracking developments and reading the opinions of various commentators about whether Trump would or should drop bunker bombs on the Iranian uranium enrichment facility buried deep within a mountain at Fordo.

One article in The Age piqued my interest: “If you look closely behind the F- bomb and fury you can see what Trump really wants”. According to the author, Trump had one key motivation: He badly wants to be awarded the Nobel peace prize.

With another Google click, I discovered that Trump had already been nominated by US House Representative Buddy Carter for bringing to an end the “12-day war” between Iran and Israel.

It turns out Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister had previously recommended the US President receive the award for his “decisive diplomatic intervention” in the recent India-Pakistan conflict. And a Republican member of the House of Representatives had submitted another nomination, citing the global impact of Trump’s 2024 election win.

Apparently, there are already 338 nominations, but I’m not sure that dropping bombs on another country contrary to international law will endear Trump to the selection panel (legal tip 101: The UN Charter says that states can use force only in response to an actual or imminent attack – anticipatory self-defence is not allowed).

The Nobel prize discussion led me to review some of the past recipients of this award. It’s an impressive list, and efforts to prevent nuclear war and the spread of nuclear weapons have been repeatedly recognised.

One name jumped out – the 2014 recipient Malala Yousafzai. Rather than dropping bombs, as a young girl in Pakistan, she spoke out against the Taliban’s terrorist regime and its impact on the lives of girls, especially their access to education. For her courage, while on a school bus in 2012, she was targeted and shot in the head by a Taliban gunman.

Yousafzai survived and on her 16th birthday, the same age as my son is now, she spoke at the United Nations, where she pleaded with states to recognise and protect the equal right to education for girls all over the world.

If you search her name, you will discover the Malala Fund – an organisation co-founded by Malala that aims to ensure that all girls have access to 12 years of education. If you read a little further, you be will confronted by the scope of this challenge, given that at least 122 million girls globally are still denied their right to education – 34 million of primary school age and 87 million of secondary school age.

For organisations like the Malala Fund, UNICEF, Plan International and the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, this denial of girls’ education is a serious human rights issue.

For the World Bank, it’s also a serious economic issue, costing “countries between $US15 trillion-$30 trillion ($A23 trillion-$46 trillion) in lost lifetime productivity and earnings”.

What’s even more interesting is the research that reveals a strong correlation between education and peace. Girls who receive education are less likely to experience domestic violence and abuse, but countries with higher school completion rates are also, on average, more peaceful.

As Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, has said, “education is, quite simply, peace building by another name. It is the most effective form of defence spending there is”.

NATO member states might want to reflect on this after conceding to Trump’s calls to increase their defence spending. (They may also want to reflect on the unprecedented rise in defence spending to $2.7 trillion in 2024 – 9.4 per cent more than in 2023.)

If Trump really wants to put his name on the Nobel peace prize, he might want to change tracks and call on states to ensure they meet their obligations under the Incheon Declaration on inclusive education and Paris Declaration on Investing in Education, which require that governments allocate at least 4-6 per cent of GDP to education.

If he’s looking for motivation to adopt this approach, he might also want to reflect on the fact that Yousafzai’s efforts to ensure education for girls earned her more than a Nobel peace prize. She also has her own day on the UN calendar.

On July 12 each year, the UN celebrates Malala Day to honour her contribution to pursuing educational equality for girls – not a bad achievement for a young girl who wanted nothing more than for every girl to have a chance to go to school.

John Tobin is a professor of human rights law in the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne, and co-director of studies for the human rights program in the Master of Laws and co-director of research in human rights within the Institute for International Law and the Humanities