OSLO, Norway — The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded Friday, a ray of light in a dark year for world peace, with the International Court of Justice, UNRWA and UN chief Antonio Guterres seen as favorites.

In the final run-up to the announcement, Nobel-watchers are struggling to predict this year's laureate, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, famine in Sudan, and a collapsing climate painting a grim picture of world affairs.

A total of 286 candidates — 197 individuals and 89 organizations — are known to be on this year's list of nominees.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee keeps the candidates' names secret for 50 years, but those eligible to nominate are allowed to reveal who they have proposed.

The Norwegian Peace Council, an umbrella organization of NGOs, predicts the prize will go to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), as the devastating conflict between Israel and Hamas, sparked by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attacks on Israeli soil, risks pushing the entire Middle East into full-scale war.

"A Peace Prize to UNRWA would be a strong recognition of their work in the face of a difficult political and economic situation," the collective said.

UNRWA provides aid to millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and neighboring countries.

But lauding their work with a Peace Prize would certainly anger Israeli authorities, who accuse the organization of colluding with Hamas.

If this prediction were to prove accurate, the UN agency could possibly receive the prize together with its Swiss-Italian head Philippe Lazzarini.

Preserving world order

Another way of addressing the Middle East conflict and Russia's offensive in Ukraine could be to honor the International Court of Justice (ICJ), tasked with resolving conflicts between countries in the courtroom rather than on the battlefield.

The UN's highest court, the ICJ, based in The Hague, has ordered Russia to cease its invasion of Ukraine and, earlier this year, ordered Israel to immediately halt its military operations in Rafah.

The orders were disregarded on the ground, but cranked up pressure on the two countries to respect international law.

A woman holds Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov's 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal in New York, on June 20, 2022. AFP PHOTO

"The ICJ has made important contributions," said Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO).

"Obviously, it's not a court that has any power or any structure to put power behind their rulings, but they rely on the international community to follow up on their rulings," he said.

Asle Sveen, a Nobel expert and historian, meanwhile said he thought the prize should go to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres of Portugal, possibly together with a UN agency.

"The UN needs all the support and attention the organization can get to survive against the forces which in reality claim might is right," Sveen said.

"A Peace Prize to Antonio Guterres will give him a unique opportunity to... warn against the dangers of making the UN and the world order irrelevant," he said.

No prize?

Other possible winners are the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms and Afghan women's rights campaigner Mahbouba Seraj.

But given the bleak state of world affairs, perhaps no one should get the Peace Prize this year, suggested Dan Smith, the head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

"Maybe this is the time to say, 'Yes, many people are working very hard, but it's not getting there and we need more people and world leaders to wake up and realize that we are in an extremely dangerous situation,'" he told Agence France-Presse.

But that would be viewed as an acknowledgement of failure by the award committee, and is therefore deemed unlikely.

"I'm confident there will be a worthy candidate for the Peace Prize this year as well," the secretary of the committee, Olav Njolstad, told AFP.

The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on Friday at 11 a.m. (0900 GMT).