Nobel Peace Prize 2017 awarded to Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

At exactly 4:00 p.m. on October 6, Vietnam time, the Nobel Committee announced the winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Accordingly, this prestigious award went to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

Chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, announces the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Photo: Reuters

At a press conference in Oslo, Norway at 11:00 a.m. local time on October 6 (4:00 p.m. Vietnam time), Chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Ms. Berit Reiss-Andersen, announced that the winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize is the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

ICAN is a coalition of non-governmental organizations from about 100 countries around the world.

Ms. Berit Reiss-Andersen said that ICAN has been and is the leading civil society campaign in the effort to ban the proliferation of nuclear weapons under international law.

“Over the past year, ICAN has given new direction and vigor to efforts to promote a world without nuclear weapons,” the Nobel Committee said in a statement.

Last year, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize for his monumental efforts to end the country's more than 50-year civil war.

The Nobel Peace Prize is the fifth of six Nobel Prizes to be announced this year, following the Physics, Medicine, Chemistry and Literature prizes announced from October 2-5. The final Nobel Prize of the season - the Economics Prize - will be announced on October 9.

The Nobel Prizes were founded by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish businessman and inventor. The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, five years after Nobel's death.

The prize originally had only five categories, including Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace. In 1968, the Bank of Sweden added a prize in economics.

According to Nobel's will, the Nobel Peace Prize is decided by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, established by the Norwegian Parliament. Meanwhile, the other Nobel Prizes are awarded in Sweden and decided by the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, in the Norwegian capital Oslo, while the other prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden.

Each Nobel Prize consists of a gold medal, a diploma and a prize money of 8 million Swedish kronor (equivalent to $930,000).

According to Dan Tri