The Washington Post runs an article arguing that President Obama may be in a constitutional confusion when it comes to accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. It goes into the legalities and past practices in an interesting sort of way, noting among other things that the cash award, some $1.4 million, is not his to give to charity: it belongs to the US government.
Then the article gets rather pissy about how Obama committed an even graver sin by accepting an award from Saudi King Abdullah, the “Collar of the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit” on his visit to the Kingdom last June. The piece provides gratuitous slaps at King Abdul Aziz and the fact that we don’t have peace in the Middle East. It ignores that fact of King Abdullah’s peace plan entirely.
Personally, I think receiving the Collar is not significantly different from receiving the ‘Keys to a City’. It’s a mark of respect and acknowledgment, perhaps even a gift to encourage continued behavior. It’s hardly a bribe, however. Further, whatever monetary value is inherent in the Collar goes to the US government anyway. There are long-standing regulations about what Presidents and other government officials must do with gifts with more than token value: either give them to the US Treasury for safe-keeping or buy them from the Treasury at their fair market value. I suspect the Collar will end up in a warehouse along with various other medals, works of art, and official bric-a-brac.
An Unconstitutional Nobel
Ronald D. Rotunda and J. Peter PhamPeople can, and undoubtedly will, argue for some time about whether President Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, though, there’s a simpler and more immediate question: Does the Constitution allow him to accept the award?
Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, the emolument clause, clearly stipulates: “And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.”
…
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
President Obama should donate his Nobel Peace Prize funds to the U.S. government to pay for his two Scandanavian trips: 1. Copenhagen for his failing bid to push the Olympic games there and 2. To pick up Nobel Peace Prize funds. Each trip cost the U.S. taxpayer about $ 920,000 for Air Force One, security etc.
And there is the issue of how the Nobel foundation funds invested in Swedish armament industry and in weapons of mass destruction. Although the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five Norwegians from the Norway Storting (Parliment), they Nobel funds are kept in Sweden, where Alfred Nobel was from. Sweden is the worlds largest exporter of arms (per capita), followed by Israel.
1. Originally the directive from Alfred Nobel was to place the funds in real estate or similar safe investments, however since 1953 the foundation was allowed by the Swedish government to invest in shares, which stopped the hither to depletion of the funds.
2. The funds are at the moment approx US$ 500 million in total (it shrunk approx 20% last year).
3. The management is not done by the foundation itself, it is split across several (about ten) portfolios managed by different asset managers in Sweden and other countri es, the spread across countries and by asset type can be found here: http://nobelprize.org/nobelfoundation/finan-manag.html
4. As late as 2005, there is an explicit admission from the foundation that there are NO ethical guidelines issued to the asset managers:
http://www.dagsavisen.no/innenriks/article256458.ece?service=articlePrint – in Norwegian)
5.There have been several ’scandals’ surrounding the asset management, presumably deriving from the lack of ethical guidelines from the Nobel foundation
- In 1998, the Observer made an investigation into the investments and found that many of the world largest arms manufactureres (including Boeing, British Aerospace, GKN och Smiths Industries) were in the Nobel foundation portfolios
- in 2005, a Norwegian organization ‘Norwatch’ looked specifically into the portfolio handled by a US firm group called T Rowe Price who in their general portfolios have manufacturers of both cluster bombs and atomic bombs (Lockheed Martin). The Nobel foundation did not exclude the possibility that their funds were invested in such shares
6. it is probable that such investments are held in the the Bofor group, which has a high level chemical plant in Ifshahan, Iran, which manufactures TNT, and quite likely sophisticated chemical precursors used to help create nuclear enriched uranium.
However, dynamite and related products was the original invention and business which gave Alfred Nobel the means to set up the prize in the first place, and he was the owner of Bofors from 1894-96, during which he “had the key role in reshaping the iron manufacturer to a modern cannon manufacturer (…)” : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors
No doubt the prestige of the prize to a large degree derives from the large sums involved, but is therefore also stained by the way the money was and is procured.
But the prestige also derives from Alfred Nobel’s testamentary wish to promote peace and international understanding.
The paradox the funds for the Nobel Prize are invested and retained in funds related to armament productions and weapons of mass destruction and many people are unaware of this situation.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
I completely agree with you. As well, maybe he should give those funds to pay for health care! Even though he will probably use that money to help push his socialist agenda.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
I suspect that he will probably use the funds, anyways. Whether it belongs to the goverment or not. The entire goverment is filled with Democrat pushing the same agenda. Basically, the money will be used to push his socialist agenda anyways.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
I agree that Obama’s acceptance of the Nobel raises Constitutional issues. Furthermore, there doesn’t appear to be any way he can keep the money – if this was a Republican prez I have no doubt the U.S. press would be screaming at him for even thinking he could keep the money long enough to give it to charity.
As for the Collar, the main question is whether this is a meaningful rank of nobility (which is forbidden) or a mere decoration of achievement. Does Obama have any privileges or exemptions from Saudi law or due process because he’s been collared?
I can’t think of a past president who had more issues with foreign gifts than Obama – either giving or receiving them.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
No way should this man recive a peace prize for anything he has done. I mean he really hasn’t done much of anything for the us. Has he?
October:17:2009 - 08:20
Oh, they all get flack when there’s an outrageously expensive or extravagant gift… I remember them back to the Kennedy days.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
John, do you recall another president who had problems when it came to giving gifts to foreign leaders? The calligraphy thing was great, but what do you make of the business of giving an iPod to the Brits and returning the bust of Winston Churchill?
October:17:2009 - 08:20
I think its time to leave Mr. Obama alone on this one (He has enough on his plate as it is). Politics forced the president to accept the award. If he did not accept the award, Obama would be perceived as anti-peace. He had no choice to except the award, and he accepted it knowing he did not deserve it. No one can convince me that this Harvard graduate actually believed he deserved the award, so it disturbs me when conservatives frame him as believing so. If the president made any misstep, it would be letting the politics of this peace prize incident disrupt the decisions he must make about Afghanistan. However, I do agree that the president must give the money to charity.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
No, there you’ve got me… or the White House. The outbound gifts have seemed particularly inappropriate, if not out-and-out dumb.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
You raise a good point. It’s not Obama’s fault that the Nobel Commission chose him. The Commission needs its head examined, though.
The article, though, pointed out that the President cannot give the money to charity: it’s not his to give. The money must go to the US Treasury. Were he to give it to charity, he’d receive a reduction in his taxes valued at near $500K. That is the kind of ‘personal emolument’ that’s expressly forbidden by law.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
I agree that Obama is particularly gauche in the gift-giving department. He needs better protocol advisers in general, as every time he goes abroad he seems totally unaware of the protocols in other countries–around gifts, but also salutations, shaking hands or not, bowing or not, etc
October:17:2009 - 08:20
Gauche? Gauche! Now that is a word I haven’t heard in a while.
Not just gauche, but gauche in many ways and I’m not referring to protocol and manners.
For someone who has lived abroad and studied in elite universities, Obama is very much a child of the Chicago hoods. You almost expect him to do a knuckle knock with sarkozy…
October:17:2009 - 08:20
Jay Kactuz,
I hope you know French…
Gauche is not really the right (right ??) word for Sarkozy
But you’re right: he often behaves like a child, a nervous child.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
As I’m left-handed, ‘gauche’ is not a word I use a lot! Same with ’sinister’.
I am well aware of its meaning however and it’s particularly apt here.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
Michel and John–LOL
LOL 
True Obama does behave like a nervous child, or boisterous adolescent, at times, and also rather petulent, as when the Russians shook Putin’s hand but not his (must have been another protocol non-information lapse on Obama’s part to keep extending his hand). While he has many fine attributes, I also think he is such a rapid riser that it is worrisome, and has made so much of being raised white in Hawaii yet benefitting from being black-skinned (read Affirmative Action–you don’t get into Columbia with mediocre marks from Pacific College, nor Harvard Law with only decent marks from Colombia unless you have other points going for you) that even that is worrisome. Hopefully Obama is as fast a learner as everyone seems to think, and actually does something except plan for his next move up the ladder, now that he is President.
Michel–Sarko was sounding almost “gauchiste” in the initial part of his UN speech until he reverted to his law and order “la racaille” type. Had me all beneficent towards him there for a while, until he brought me back to reality! LOL
October:17:2009 - 08:20
Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, the emolument clause, clearly stipulates: “And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.”
…
Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt both received Nobel Prizes. The Nobel Committee, though its members are selected by the Norwegian Parliament, is a private organization.
Just because a current government has a role in selecting the directors of an organization does not mean that the organization is not private. For example, the American Red Cross has a Congressional charter to carry out disaster relief and eight members of its board are appointed by the President. When it reformed its governance in 2007, the President signed off on it.
The Federal Reserve would fall into this category as well, a private body whose leader is appointed as a Cabinet member would be.
October:17:2009 - 08:20
Again, I think Obama is okay in receiving the prize. The cash reward is another matter, however. There, it doesn’t matter if the money is coming from a government or a private concern: he can’t keep it, nor disburse it to his own financial benefit.