I did some looking up on pages of the linked website here to see what the criteria are for choosing winners of the Nobel Prize for world peace. First, one must be nominated by an eligible nominator:[1]

"Who may nominate candidates for the Peace Prize?

"According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, a nomination is considered valid if it is submitted by a person who falls within one of the following categories:

"Members of national assemblies and governments of states

"Members of international courts

"University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes

"Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

"Board members of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

"Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1)

"Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee"

Then there is a process for choosing a prize winner or prize winners for the year from among the list of nominees:[2]

"At the first meeting of the Nobel Committee after the February 1 deadline for nominations, the Committee's Permanent Secretary presents the list of the year's candidates. The Committee may on that occasion add further names to the list, after which the nomination process is closed, and discussion of the particular candidates begins. In the light of this first review, the Committee draws up the so-called short list - i.e. the list of candidates selected for more thorough consideration. The short list typically contains from twenty to thirty candidates.

"The candidates on the short list are then considered by the Nobel Institute's permanent advisers. In addition to the Institute's Director and Research Director, the body of advisers generally consists of a small group of Norwegian university professors with broad expertise in subject areas with a bearing on the Peace Prize. The advisers usually have a couple of months in which to draw up their reports. Reports are also occasionally requested from other Norwegian and foreign experts.

"When the advisers' reports have been presented, the Nobel Committee embarks on a thorough-going discussion of the most likely candidates. In the process, the need often arises to obtain additional information and updates about candidates from additional experts, often foreign. As a rule, the Committee reaches a decision only at its very last meeting before the announcement of the Prize at the beginning of October.

"The Committee seeks to achieve unanimity in its selection of the Peace Prize Laureate. On the rare occasions when this proves impossible, the selection is decided by a simple majority vote."

With that in mind, it's actually remarkable to me how often non-politicians and non-jurists have won the Nobel Prize for world peace. Each year, the committee has a lot of nominees to consider from a lot of different sources. During the process of investigating nominees and seeking unanimity, a lot of names fall out of consideration.

[1] http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_intro/nomination...

[2] http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/