International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons wins 2017 Nobel Peace prize award

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has been awarded Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2017.

ICAN was given the award for its efforts "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".

Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Berit Reiss-Andersen, while announcing the award, also called on nuclear-armed states to initiate the use all diplomatic means available to work to eliminate the weapons.

"We live in a world where the risk of nuclear weapons being used is greater than it has been for a long time," she said in an apparent reference to North Korea.

ICAN is a global civil society coalition working to promote adherence to and full implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, with the goal of leading towards their total elimination. It was passed on July 7,2017.

ICAN was launched in 2007 and today counts 468 partner organizations in 101 countries.