Originally posted by: Tiptup
In her official capacity as award giver, she had to appear impartial. Also, she's friggen' royalty; that's award enough.

Indeed. As the apparent sovereign of Alderaan -- though she is never acclaimed such and never styled HM -- Leia is the fons honorum, and cannot receive any Alderaanian honors. That's assuming, of course, she was giving them Alderaanian medals. I'm not sure what other medals she could possibly be authorized to hand out. Maybe the Rebel Alliance cooked up their own honors/decorations system, and Leia either holds sufficient Rebel rank to award them or was doing it on behalf of an Alliance commissioned officer, like Dodonna. But I think it's more likely that it was sponsored by the government(-in-diaspora) of a rebelling world.