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

It won the prestigious honour for its "work to draw attention to the catastrophic consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its groundbreaking efforts to a achieve treaty-based prohibition on such weapons".

The Norwegian committee that chooses the winner sorted through more than 300 nominations for this year's award, which recognises both accomplishments and intentions.

The prize announcement was made in Oslo on Friday morning, culminating a week in which Nobel laureates have been named in medicine, physics, chemistry and literature.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee does not release names of those it considers for the prize, but said 215 individuals and 103 organisations had been nominated.

The five members of Norway's Nobel committee unveiled their choice at 10am in what is traditionally an eagerly-anticipated award handed out during the foundation's prize-giving week.

Lawmakers, cabinet ministers, former laureates and university professors are among the thousands of people around the world entitled to suggest candidates for the Peace Prize.

The award is announced in October, but is always handed out on December 10 - the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.

This year's Nobel prizes for physics, chemistry, medicine and literaturehave already been announced - all going to men.

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the most prestigious honours on the planet, but it has provoked plenty of debate over the years.

Since the first award in 1901, it has been awarded to 130 recipients. One noteworthy anniversary this year is the centenary of the Red Cross's first of three awards.

The roots of the award were in the will of Alfred Nobel, the wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite. 

BDST: 1525 HRS, OCT 6, 2017
AP