The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) (founded in 2007) "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 on such weapons," according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee announcement on October 6, 2017. The award announcement acknowledged the fact that "the world's nine nuclear-armed powers and their allies" neither signed nor supported the treaty-based prohibition known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons or nuclear ban treaty, yet in an interview Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen told reporters that the award was intended to give "encouragement to all players in the field" to disarm. The award was hailed by civil society as well as governmental and intergovernmental representatives who support the nuclear ban treaty, but drew criticism from those opposed. At the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony held in Oslo City Hall on December 10, 2017, Setsuko Thurlow, an 85-year-old woman who survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn jointly received a medal and diploma of the award on behalf of ICAN and delivered the Nobel lecture.

A global civil society coalition of 468 peace, human rights, environment, development and faith groups as of 2017, ICAN was recognized for its decade-long consensus-building support for the Humanitarian Pledge and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Nobel Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen described ICAN's work as having "brought the debate forward by focusing so heavily on the humanitarian consequences of using nuclear arms."

The Peace Prize announcement came in the midst of the 2017 North Korea crisis, uncertainty over certification of Iran's compliance with the 2015 accord that limits Iran's nuclear program, the Doomsday Clock assessment in January 2017 of the highest threat of nuclear war since 1953, heightened rhetoric between Indian and Pakistani military officials to target each other and retaliate with the early use nuclear weapons, Russia's strategic doctrine calling for early use of nuclear weapons against any "major NATO assault" on its territory, and opposition by nuclear powers to the nuclear ban treaty and its ratification.

In a telephone interview immediately after the announcement, ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn said that, the Cold War being long over, possession and use of weapons of mass destruction "is no longer acceptable" in the 21st century. In a formal statement, ICAN called the 2017 prize a tribute to "the tireless efforts of many millions of campaigners and concerned citizens worldwide who, ever since the dawn of the atomic age, have loudly protested nuclear weapons" and to "the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the hibakusha—and victims of nuclear test explosions". Holding a press conference at UN Headquarters, in New York, the ICAN executive director said that disarmament campaign efforts of a "new generation" of "people who grew up after the Cold War and don't understand why we still have the [nuclear] weapons," were in effect also being recognized by the award.

Nominations for the prize numbered 318, including 215 individuals and 103 organizations, second highest to the record 376 nominations considered in 2016. Though the Nobel Committee does not release names being considered for 50 years, reportedly they included: Tong Jen and Onodera Toshitaki seeking justice for Chinese victims of wartime atrocities during World War II; organizers Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini of the 2015 Iran Deal negotiations; UNHCR and High Commissioner Filippo Grandi for their work on the rights and dignity of refugees; Turkish journalists Cumhuriyet and Can Dündar; The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for their work securing Gambia's political transition; and the humanitarian White Helmets, also known as the Syrian Civil Defense, and Raed al Saleh.

Congratulatory messages in the days following the award announcement came from individual disarmament supporters as well as ICAN coalition organizations, other civil society groups, public figures, governments and the United Nations, including: survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (hibakusha), The ATOM Project, Peace Boat, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, Ploughshares Fund, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Germany, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, UK Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas, Austria, Canada's New Democratic Party Critic for Foreign Affairs Hélène Laverdière, Mexico, and Nigeria. Twenty-three countries included congratulatory remarks in their statements at the UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, including Sweden and New Zealand.

Pugwash President Sergio Duarte wrote that the award designation reflects "growing public recognition" of banning nuclear weapons as part of the international humanitarian norm to abolish weapons of mass destruction, citing examples of the abolition of bacteriological weapons in the 1970s and chemical weapons in the 1990s. He also called on State parties to make further progress at the UN High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament slated for 2018, noting the role of civil society organizations such as ICAN in supporting such multilateral disarmament processes.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres relayed in a press statement that the award "recognizes the determined efforts of civil society to highlight the unconscionable humanitarian and environmental consequences that would result if they [nuclear weapons] were ever used again," noting that the first UN General Assembly resolution, in 1946, had "established the goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction." The UN's top disarmament official Izumi Nakamitsu in a statement said that the 2017 Peace Prize "recognizes once again the vital and indispensable role of civil society in advancing our common aspirations peace, security and a world free of nuclear weapons."