The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organisation of survivors of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its activism against nuclear weapons.

“Hibakusha is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Friday.

Committee chair Joergen Watne Frydnes said the award was made as the “taboo against the use of nuclear weapon is under pressure”.

He said the committee “wishes to honour all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace”.

Efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons have been honoured in the past by the Nobel committee.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the Peace Prize in 2017 and in 1995 Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs won for “their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms”.

The 2024 prize was awarded against a backdrop of devastating conflicts raging in the world, notably in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.

Alfred Nobel stated in his will that the prize should be awarded for “the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.

The Nobel prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($A1.6 million).

Unlike the other Nobel prizes that are selected and announced in Stockholm, founder Alfred Nobel decreed the peace prize be decided and awarded in Oslo by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The Nobel season ends on Monday with the announcement of the winner of the economics prize, formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

–AAP with Reuters