South African lawyer Navi Pillay awarded 2026 Nobel Peace Prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law. The award recognizes “a person who with exceptional courage and integrity has led the way towards a more comprehensive global legal order,” the committee stated. The laureate, the committee continued, “has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.”Pillay (Durban, South Africa, 85) has served as a judge in the High Court of South Africa, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and a judge at the International Criminal Court. She served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and, until recently, chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Currently, Navi Pillay is a judge on the International Court of Justice in the case in which Myanmar is accused of genocide.The veteran judge was at work when she learned she had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A video shared on social media by Amnesty International President Agnes Callamard shows Pillay surprised and moved by the applause of those around her. “Is it true? This must be a joke.” Pillay said. “If you clap a little bit more I may share this prize with Trump,” she added.The judge was referring to the fact that last year’s laureate, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, dedicated the award to the U.S. president and, in January 2026, during a meeting at the White House, presented him with the gold medal that accompanies the prize, in recognition of what she described as his commitment to Venezuela’s freedom.This could not be a better choice at a time of repeated attacks against international justice. She is a former ICC judge at a time when the US administration is seekinng to destroy the ICC. She has headed the commission of Inquiry which found that Israel commited the crime of… https://t.co/AD6nIGP6Wg— Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) October 9, 2026 “An absolute necessity”“At a time of existential challenges – including more wars and conflicts than the world has seen in a long time – international law is no longer just a supplement to peace and security. It is an absolute necessity,” the committee said in its statement. “Peace requires justice,” the committee continued, adding that “judges — those who guard the thin red line between order and chaos — are therefore highly deserving of our praise.” “But today, as these same judges are being punished and their institutions are under attack, we need people of courage, vision, and determination — qualities that the 2026 Peace Prize laureate, Navi Pillay, demonstrates in her work,” added Nobel Committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes upon announcing the award.Pillay “has held states and national leaders accountable and brought hope to victims of violence and conflict,” the committee emphasized. “Navi Pillay’s commitment to justice and human dignity is a source of hope and inspiration to all who seek to bring about a more peaceful world.”Born into a family of Indian Tamil origin under apartheid in Durban, South Africa, Pillay became a lawyer and legal pioneer, facing profound structural discrimination, segregation, and exclusion.“There is a common thread running from her early work defending Nelson Mandela and others who opposed apartheid to her service as a judge in some of the key international legal cases of our time,” insisted Frydnes.After the award was announced, reports Isabel Ferrer,ICC President Tomoko Akane congratulated Pillay and emphasized that it is “an important recognition of the fundamental role that international justice plays as a pillar of lasting peace.” “At a time when the international legal order and the rule of law face profound challenges, this recognition is of special importance.”In 2025, Machado received the Nobel Peace Prize “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” The opposition leader, who was in hiding at the time, traveled to Norway to try to attend the award ceremony at the Nordic country’s parliament in late 2025. Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the prize on her behalf at the official ceremony because her departure from Venezuela was complicated and she was unable to arrive in time.In 2024, the award went to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese national organization of survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — known as the hibakusha — “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons,” according to the Norwegian committee.Since 1901, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has been the body responsible for selecting the person it deems to meet the criteria set by the prize’s founder. Alfred Nobel’s wish, explicitly stated in his will, lists the key qualities sought in the profile of the most deserving candidate: “[…] the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.”The Nobel Peace Prize, the last of the five prizes Alfred Nobel specified in his will, carries a prize of nine million Swedish krona, approximately $900,000. The award will be presented in Oslo on December 10, the date marking the anniversary of the founder’s death.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition