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International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons wins 2017 Nobel Peace Prize

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The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) on Friday.

ICAN is a coalition of non-governmental organisations from around 100 different countries around the globe, which advocates prohibition of nuclear weapons under international law.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize was selected by a panel appointed by the Norwegian parliament from a total of 318 candidates.

“The organisation is receiving the award 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,” said Norway’s Nobel committee president Berit Reiss-Andersen.

“We live in a world where the risk of nuclear weapons being used is greater than it has been for a long time. Some states are modernising their nuclear arsenals, and there is a real danger that more countries will try to procure nuclear weapons,” The Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

A coalition of more than 300 NGOs founded in Vienna in 2007 on the fringes of an international conference on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, ICAN has tirelessly mobilised campaigners and celebrities alike in its cause, Dawn reported.

It was a key player in the adoption of a historic nuclear weapons ban treaty, signed by 122 countries in July. However, the accord was largely symbolic as none of the nine known world nuclear powers signed up to it, the report added.

The organisation will receive their prize, consisting of a gold medal, a diploma, and a cheque for 9 million Swedish kronor ($1.1m), at a ceremony in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of the prize’s creator, Swedish philanthropist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel.

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