Human rights groups the world over were elated yesterday when a mere seven war criminals were nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

The award has a proud history of nominating - and often awarding - prominent public figures in flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention.

“This at least marks a step in the right direction,” said a visibly defeated Llorna Jackson, co-chair of Human Rights Watch. “The list of nominations is marginally less of a spit in the face of human decency than it usually is.”

However, the collective death toll of those nominated is not the lowest it has ever been. In great part due of an ongoing series of indisciminate drone strikes by the USA, the (figurative) blood of a 72,843 innocent people are on the silk-gloved hands of this years nominees.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee shrugged off concerns that they were normalising mass murder, with a spokesperson saying: “If we nominated genuinely peaceful people no-one would care.”

A smattering of pressure groups have highlighted the lack of women nominees, with #WarCriminalsSoMale one of the top trending hashtags over the weekend.

A lavish, star-studded ceremony will be held in Oslo, Norway, on December 11th with no sense of irony or self-reproach.