Perhaps look at it another way - assigning a Nobel peace prize is a way of putting wider attention onto someone, and maybe works as a soft pressure to keep them behaving a little? For half a year or so after you get awarded a peace prize, your profile in the world is a lot higher than normal, perhaps giving you a bit more of a nudge in the right direction.

Also, Aung San Suu Kyi won her Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, 26 years ago. How old is that? Well, that was the year that the world-wide-web was born. Kurt Cobain was still alive. George Bush was in office and was just 'George Bush', not 'George Bush Sr' (and the first Bush war against Iraq started in January). The Soviet Union still existed, dissolved only in December of that year. Street Fighter II hit the arcades. The Rodney King beating sparked the LA riots. The war that gave us the term 'ethnic cleansing' started that year in Yugoslavia. Apartheid was still going on in South Africa, with a couple of years left to go. Linus Torvalds announces Linux on comp.os.minix.

Calling the Nobel Peace Prize bullshit because a recipient behaves differently-to-expected a generation later is itself bullshit.

Maybe we should only award Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.

The rules prevent it other than in exceptional circumstances. See my comment above about the consideration of an award to Gandhi for example. Apart from wanting the candidate to continue to do good, there are also considerations such as practicalities of where the money should go as the money is awarded with the intent of using it to further the purposes of the prize, though the recipient has wide latitude, and so it is not a given that it'd be appropriate to just hand the money to someones estate for example.

This is something we discuss a lot in Sweden. The Nobel peace prize is issued by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Swedish one. And the economy prize was constituted as a response to the bank who started financing the Nobel committee.

While I agree the price to Obama was ridiculous, you need to see that one basically as an expression of just how much relief the election of Obama was for the rest of the world.

It was a "please prove you're not like Bush" prize. The election of Obama is the first time I've seen widespread parties with non-Americans celebrating the election of an American president.

Don't underestimate just how terrifying a lot of the world saw the willingness of the US to elect Bush not once but twice (now imagine how we feel about Trump).

One might argue Obama failed to live up the aspirations of giving him the price to some extent, and hope they learn from that, but that's a different issue.

> Aung San Suu Kyi--currently accused of genocide.

Two things: She is not generally "accused of genocide". There is a real argument to be made that she should not stay quiet, and that she is not doing enough, and there is the fear that this might be because she might even agree with the violence or have an antipathy for muslims, but to my knowledge there is no clear evidence about why she has remained quiet on the matter and certainly nothing to imply that she has personally been involved in making decisions on the matter. Of course that doesn't prove she is innocent either, but it's a bit early to start throwing around accusations she is part responsible for genocide.

Secondly, the price was awarded a long time ago. When it was awarded, she deserved it. Maybe she's changed. The price is very specifically not awarded for "lifetime good behavior" unless that is specifically the reasoning used by the committee, but generally for specific acts or specific service set out when it is awarded.

There might be an argument that it'd be better to hand it out posthumously so a persons whole life could be considered, but AFAIK the terms of the Nobel Prizes specifically prevent posthumous awards other than in special circumstances (which generally have been treated as if the award is decided before the Nobel Committee is aware that the nominee has died), not least because part of the intent is to encourage people to continue to do good.

This has famously "backfired" on the committees in the sense that for example Gandhi was nominated several times, and lost out in part because of concerns that were relevant at the time (e.g. in 1947 diary notes from the committee chairman shows that concerns over the Indian-Pakistani conflict were raised as objections for giving it to him at that time), and where the committee appears to have expected there'd be a better time to award it.

By the time of his death, and certainly for many years afterwards, an award would have been relatively uncontroversial, but the it was too late. Gandhi was nominated again in 1948, died right before the end of the nomination window, the committee considered it, since there were some degree of openings in the rules given the timing. But instead the committee decided not to award the prize at all that year saying "there was no suitable living candidate" - given that Gandhi was the only prominent nominee in 1948 that was dead when the decision was made it was a very clear message, but the committee did not believe they could award it to him posthumously.

You're right. She is not accused of genocide. More like aiding and abetting.