A nuclear disarmament group has won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its decade-long campaign to rid the world of the atomic bomb.

As nuclear-fuelled crises swirl over North Korea and Iran, the International Campaign To Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) was awarded the honour on Friday.

"The organisation is receiving the award 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 of such weapons," said Norway's Nobel committee president Berit Reiss-Andersen.

Beatrice Fihn, the leader of the grassroots ICAN organisation, was "delighted" with the prize, adding that US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un should "know that nuclear weapons are illegal".

More than 70 years since atomic bombs were used on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and as tensions flare over the North Korean crisis, the Nobel committee sought to highlight ICAN's efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.