Pillay wins Nobel Peace Prize
South African jurist Navi Pillay has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law, with the Norwegian Nobel Committee highlighting her role in strengthening international justice and holding perpetrators of serious crimes accountable.
Pillay, 85, a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and judge at the International Criminal Court (ICC), was honoured on Friday for her long career in national and international law.
The committee said the award underscored the importance of upholding an international legal order at a time when conflicts are increasing and institutions of international justice face political pressure.
“The system of international law is under tremendous pressure, and its institutions are under attack,” the committee said in its citation. It warned that a shift towards power politics at the expense of legal frameworks threatened stability, trust and peaceful coexistence.
“Whenever might overtakes right, it undermines stability, trust
and peaceful coexistence,” the citation said.
Pillay chaired the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory from 2021 to 2025.
The commission concluded in 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, a finding Israel rejected as “scandalous”.
Her selection comes amid growing tensions surrounding the ICC, which has faced criticism and sanctions from the administration of US President Donald Trump over its actions involving Israeli leaders and other cases.
Haakon Gjerloew, acting director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said the award should be understood primarily as a promotion of the international legal order rather than a direct criticism of Trump.
The committee also praised Pillay for her judicial rigour, personal integrity and courage, saying she had brought hope to victims of violence and conflict by pursuing accountability for abuses.
“A common thread runs from her early work defending Nelson Mandela and others who stood up against apartheid to her service as a judge in some of the key international court cases of our time,” the citation said.
Born on 23 September 1941 in Durban, South Africa, to a family of Indian Tamil descent, Pillay became a lawyer during the apartheid era and defended activists opposing the system of racial segregation.
In 1967, she established her own law firm in Natal, becoming the first woman to do so in the province. She later studied at Harvard University, earning a Doctor of Juridical Science degree in 1988.
Pillay was appointed to South Africa’s High Court in 1995. In 1999, she became a judge and president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she played a significant role in establishing that rape and other forms of sexual violence could constitute crimes against humanity and genocide. The tribunal also addressed the role of propaganda in inciting genocide.
She subsequently served as a judge at the ICC and as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.
In 2019, Pillay was appointed an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice in proceedings concerning allegations that Myanmar had violated the Genocide Convention against the Rohingya. The case was brought by The Gambia.
The Nobel Committee said an international legal system capable of bringing war criminals to justice and securing accountability for victims of abuse was essential to building a peaceful world.
The 2026 award is worth 12 million Swedish kronor and will be presented in Oslo on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, who established the prizes in his will.
The Nobel Peace Prize is the fifth Nobel award announced this week, following the prizes for literature, chemistry, physics and medicine.
