OSLO, May 2 (Xinhua) -- The Norwegian Nobel Committee has elected Berit Reiss-Andersen to be the new chairman after former chairman Kaci Kullmann Five died in February, public broadcaster NRK reported Tuesday.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee is responsible for selecting the Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
Reiss-Andersen, 62, had been deputy chairman of the committee when Five was its leader and served as the committee leader after Five's passing.
Reiss-Andersen is a jurist and former head of the Norwegian association of lawyers.
She also served as state secretary for the Labour Party in the ministry of justice from 1996 to 1997.
She was elected as a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee by the Labour Party and has been a member of the committee since 2012.
The committee decided on Tuesday that the new deputy would be Henrik Syse, a research professor at Peace Research Institute Oslo.
Olav Njolstad, director of the Nobel Institute and secretary of the Nobel Committee, told NRK that parliament would later determine the composition of the committee for the 2018-to-2020 period.
The other permanent members of the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee remain Thorbjorn Jagland, secretary general of the European Council and former leader of Labour Party, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, former Progress Party politician, and Tone Jorstad, former director of the Falstad Center, a memorial and human rights center.
