A step up for the Nobel Peace Prize

I defended last year’s decision by the Nobel committee to award its Peace Proze to Jimmy Carter. That said, this year’s recipient — Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi — is a decided improvement. Here’s her official Nobel bio, and the official announcement. The key grafs:

Her principal arena is the struggle for basic human rights, and no society deserves to be labelled civilized unless the rights of women and children are respected. In an era of violence, she has consistently supported non-violence. It is fundamental to her view that the supreme political power in a community must be built on democratic elections. She favours enlightenment and dialogue as the best path to changing attitudes and resolving conflict. Ebadi is a conscious Moslem. She sees no conflict between Islam and fundamental human rights. It is important to her that the dialogue between the different cultures and religions of the world should take as its point of departure their shared values. It is a pleasure for the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the Peace Prize to a woman who is part of the Moslem world, and of whom that world can be proud – along with all who fight for human rights wherever they live.

Patrick Belton has a host of links up about her over at OxBlog. Here’s the terse announcement over at the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Meanwhile another IRNA story suggests that Iran is warming up its relations with that other exemplar of human rights, Cuba. UPDATE: Slate has a nice explanation of the decision-making process behind the Nobel Peace Prize. ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, what do you know, George W. Bush and Kofi Annan agree on the merits of the winner!