Nobel Peace Prize for Navi Pillay, champion of international justice

The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Navi Pillay, the South African judge and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, announcing the prize in Oslo, honoured her "for her efforts to promote peace and international law". It said she had "been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted".

Ms Pillay, 85, is the fifth South African to win the Peace Prize, after Albert Luthuli, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk. She dedicated the prize to "all of the survivors of international crimes" and to those defending international criminal justice.

"A common thread"

The committee said: "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."

A career in justice

• As a lawyer in apartheid South Africa, she defended anti-apartheid activists and helped expose the torture of political prisoners on Robben Island.
• She served as a judge, and later president, of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, set up after the 1994 genocide.
• She was a judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
• From September 2008 to August 2014 she was the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
• She chaired the UN's independent commission of inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which published a report on Gaza in 2025.
• She is a judge ad hoc at the International Court of Justice in the case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar.

At the Rwanda tribunal, she was one of the judges in the landmark 1998 case that established that rape could be an act of genocide.

Reactions

The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, called her "a champion of international law and human rights, and a steadfast, independent voice of justice". The current UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, said: "To say it is well deserved is a total understatement."

Philippe Bolopion, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said she had "promoted respect for human rights and sought justice for the world's worst crimes", and remained "a stalwart proponent of the international rule of law".

International law under pressure

The committee said international law is now under threat. The award comes as the United States steps up its campaign against the International Criminal Court, where Ms Pillay once served as a judge, and many observers read the choice as a statement in support of international courts.

287 nominations

The committee received 287 nominations this year, 208 for individuals and 79 for organisations. The prize is worth 12 million Swedish kronor and will be presented in Oslo on 10 December.

Ms Pillay was also one of the two winners of this year's Olof Palme Prize, shared with her fellow South African lawyer John Dugard, for their work defending human rights.