Dr Ralph Wilde awarded the prestigious Åland Islands Peace Fellowship for 2022

The Ålands fredsinstitut (Åland Islands Peace Institute), focusing on solutions to international conflict based on self-governance, minority protection, and demilitarisation, is based on the Åland Islands, an archipelago between Sweden and Finland in the Baltic Sea. Åland has a special status as an autonomous, demilitarized and neutral zone, populated by Swedish speaking people, under the sovereignty of Finland. The settlement of the dispute over the archipelago and its population through the agreement and adoption of this status was one of the few successes of the League of Nations. The Institute seeks to draw inspiration, for solutions to disputes in other places, partly from the history and ongoing position of its location.

The Peace Fellowship is awarded annually, based on a global competition. The award is a recognition of both past research achievement, and the merit of the work that will be conducted during a two-month Fellowship visit, focusing on international law and disputed territories.

In announcing the award, the Institute Director, Professor Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, stated that this was a recognition of Dr Wilde’s "outstanding and long-lasting work both in the Palestine – Israel context but also for other occupied, internationally administered and/or disputed territories which are several in our tormented world."

Read Dr Wilde’s prize-winning book on international territorial administration here; his new article on international law and Palestinian liberation can be found here.