The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning. The announcement was made by Berit Reiss-Anderson,the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway.
Reiss-Anderson said that the award had been made in recognition of Ican’s 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,” according to The Guardian.
Ican winning was a bit of a surprise, reports The Guardian. The group’s main goal is to promote “adherence to and full implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.” The campaign brought the treaty — which is the first legally binding international agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons — into existence back in 2007, and counts 468 partner organizations in 101 countries, according to The Guardian.
The treaty was endorsed by 122 countries at the UN headquartesr in New York. However, none of the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons took part in negotiations, according to The Guardian. The treaty has not gotten 50 countries to sign it yet, which is what it will take for the treaty to enter into force.
There were about 318 candidates nominated for this year’s Nobel prize, reports The Guardian. However, there is no way to know for sure how many people are nominated, because the names, besides the winner, are officially kept secret by the committee for at least 50 years (though some people do announce their candidates when they nominate them).
There have been 97 Nobel Peace Prizes awards since 1901, to 130 different laureates.
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