Mark Lowen
Every year since 1901 they have come together in secret, neither disclosing when they deliberate, nor allowing journalists to see their final meeting – until now.
The Norwegian Nobel committee members – the guardians of the world's most prestigious award – will announce on Friday who they will honour with the Nobel Peace Prize.
And the BBC, along with Norway's national broadcaster, gained access as they gathered to make their choice.
It is the first time in the award's 125-year history that the media have been allowed a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the process.
The five members and the secretary meet in the Committee room of Oslo's Nobel institute, adorned with the same chandelier and oak furniture since the first prize.
Across the walls are framed pictures of every peace laureate, with a space at the end for a photograph of this year's winner.
Beneath a portrait of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and patron of the prizes, the committee convenes on Monday morning, four days before announcing the winner.
They share coffee and pleasantries and then open proceedings; the finale of a months-long selection process.
"We discuss, we argue, there is a high temperature," the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, tells me, "but also, of course, we are civilised, and we try to make a consensus-based decision every year."
They read aloud the criteria for the prize enshrined in Nobel's will from 1895; that it be awarded to whoever has done the most for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, or for holding or promoting peace congresses.
win.
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