ICAN

Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Anti-Nuclear Campaign Group

“We know how serious the situation is around the world.”

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, the committee announced Friday. The organization, based in Geneva, will receive the $1.1 million prize because it “has been a driving force in prevailing upon the world’s nations to pledge to cooperate... in efforts to stigmatize, prohibit, and eliminate nuclear weapons,” academy committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said Friday. Chemical and biological weapons are prohibited around the world. “Nuclear weapons are even more destructive, but have not yet been made the object of a similar international legal prohibition,” she added. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Walsstrom noted that the organization has been working hard on the issue of nuclear weapons since 2007 and “we know how serious the situation is around the world.”