Freedom Award

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) bestows its Freedom Award for extraordinary contributions to the cause of refugees and human freedom. According to the IRC, "The Freedom Award reveals the remarkable ability of an individual to shape history and change for the better a world moving toward freedom for all."

The IRC was founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, and made its first Freedom Award in 1957, to German politician Willy Brandt, who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The following year, the award was presented to Winston Churchill, British prime minister during the Second World War, for his "dedicated and devoted service to the cause of human liberty". The first joint recipients of the award were Lane Kirkland and his wife Irena who won the prize in 1981. Lane was honored for his "long devotion to the cause of refugees" while Irena was described as "very much a human rights activist". Chinese dissidents Li Shuxian and Fang Lizhi were jointly honored in 1991; two American Presidents, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton took the prize as a pair in 2005, and film actress Angelina Jolie and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees High Commissioner António Guterres received the award together in 2007.

Since the first award presentation in 1957, the IRC has made it to 46 recipients, 24 of which were American; the majority of awards have been to politicians. The 1995 presentation was made in absentia to Burmese pro-democracy campaigner and leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, Aung San Suu Kyi. The 2011 award ceremony was held in New York City, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in November, where the presentation was made to the Brokaw family. In 2012, John C. Whitehead received the prize for a second time, the only person to do so.

Recipients

Year	Image	Recipient	Nationality	References
1957		Willy Brandt	German
1958		Winston Churchill	British
1959		William Joseph Donovan	American
1960		Richard Evelyn Byrd	American
1965		George Meany	American
1966		David Dubinsky	American
1967		David Sarnoff	American
1969		Lucius D. Clay	American
1970		Jacob K. Javits	American
1975		Bruno Kreisky	Austrian
1976		Leo Cherne	American
1977		Hubert Humphrey	American
1978	—	Joseph Buttinger	Austrian
1979	—	Mary Pillsbury Lord[A]	American
1981		Lane Kirkland Irena Kirkland	American American
1987		Elie Wiesel	Romanian
1987		John C. Whitehead	American
1989		Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan	French Iranian  Swiss
1989		Lech Wałęsa	Polish
1990		Violeta Chamorro	Nicaraguan
1991		Fang Lizhi and Li Shuxian	Chinese Chinese
1991		Javier Pérez de Cuéllar	Peruvian
1992		Cyrus Vance	American
1993		George Soros[B]	Hungarian
1993	—	Dwayne Andreas[C]	American
1994	—	Theodore J. Forstmann[B]	American
1994		Felix Rohatyn[C]	Austrian
1995		Aung San Suu Kyi[D]	Burmese
1995		Sadako Ogata	Japanese
1995		Richard Holbrooke	American
1997	—	Robert P. De Vecchi	American
1999		Madeleine Albright	American
2001		John McCain	American
2002	—	Reynold Levy	American
2002		Hamid Karzai	Afghan
2003		Václav Havel	Czech
2004		Roméo Dallaire[B]	Canadian
2005		George H.W. Bush Bill Clinton	American American
2006		Ellen Johnson Sirleaf	Liberian
2007		António Guterres Angelina Jolie	Portuguese American
2008		Kofi Annan	Ghanaian
2011		Brokaw family	American
2012		John C. Whitehead	American
2013		George Soros[B]	Hungarian
2014		The humanitarian aid worker
2015		Strive Masiyiwa	Zimbabwean
2016		Spyros Galinos	Greek
2017		Michael Bloomberg	American
2018		Diane von Fürstenberg	Belgian
2020		Samantha Power	Irish American
2021		Bryan Stevenson	American
2022		Syrian American Medical Society Foundation
2023		Amartya Sen	Indian
2024		Denis Mukwege	Congolese
2025		Lynsey Addario	American