Watch the very moment the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize is announced! #NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/H0AtcRU7tn
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee honoured the Geneva-based group “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”
The Norwegian committee that chooses the Nobel Peace Prize winner sorted through more than 300 nominations for this year’s award, which recognizes both accomplishments and intentions.
ICAN describes itself as a coalition of grassroots non-government groups in more than 100 nations. It began in Australia and was officially launched in Vienna in 2007.
“We live in a world where the risk of nuclear weapons being used is greater than it has been for a long time,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, the leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Asked by journalists whether the prize was essentially symbolic, given that no international measures against nuclear weapons have been reached, Reiss-Andersen said that “what will not have an impact is being passive.”
The prize announcement comes Friday in the Norwegian capital Oslo, culminating a week in which Nobel laureates have been named in medicine, physics, chemistry and literature.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee does not release names of those it considers for the prize, but said 215 individuals and 103 organizations were nominated.
The Nobel Peace Prize can be shared, and between 1901 and 2016, 97 prizes went to 130 laureates.
List of all the 130 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates 1901-2016: https://t.co/wiLDjQglEi #NobelPrize
