Nobel Peace Prize 2026 goes to Navanethem 'Navi' Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law

• Navanethem "Navi" Pillay has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize
• The Peace Prize committee is the only one that regularly recognizes achievements from the previous year
• It has been awarded 106 times to 143 laureates between 1901 and 2025
• The prize carries a cash award of 12 million Swedish kronor (around $1.2 million; €1 million)
• This week, Nobel laureates have already been named in medicine, physics, chemistry, and literature.

Below is all the news and views, previews and reviews surrounding the award of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.

Skip next section Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Navi Pillay

October 9, 2026

Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Navi Pillay

South African human rights lawyer Navanethem "Navi" Pillay has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.

Born in 1941 into an Indian-origin family in Durban, Pillay grew up under apartheid and became one of South Africa's first women of Indian descent to practice law. She defended anti-apartheid activists and fought against discriminatory prison conditions.

After apartheid, she became a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she helped establish landmark legal precedents recognizing rape as an act of genocide. She later served as a judge at the International Criminal Court and as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.

More recently, she chaired a UN commission investigating human rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

https://p.dw.com/p/5O2HF

Skip next section The 2026 Nobel winners

October 9, 2026

The 2026 Nobel winners

This week, laureates have already been named in medicine, physics, chemistry, and literature. The Nobel week will conclude on Monday with the announcement of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. 

The winners of this year's Nobel prizes

Medicine: Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for discoveries that provide new insights into how we might treat blindness, depression, addiction and dementia. 

Physics: Francis Halzen for his contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and discovery of high-energy neutrinos, described as "ghostly messengers from space."

Chemistry: Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai for their groundbreaking discoveries related to the origin of chirality and life's building blocks.

Literature: Anne Carson for her "bold and inventive oeuvre" that combines the classical with the modern.

https://p.dw.com/p/5NzXX

Skip next section Nobel Peace Prize: The winners forced to stay away

October 9, 2026

Nobel Peace Prize: The winners forced to stay away

Maria Corina Machado was unable to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in person last year. But the Venezuelan is not the only winner unable to attend the ceremony, with incarceration a common historical thread.

Here are some of the other most notable absentees.

https://p.dw.com/p/5NzK7

Skip next section The 2025 laureate Maria Corina Machado ... and Donald Trump

October 9, 2026

The 2025 laureate Maria Corina Machado ... and Donald Trump

The recipient of last year’s prize was Maria Corina Machado for "her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela." 

However, she was unable to collect the award herself in the December ceremony as the ruling Socialist government in Caracas warned she would make herself a fugitive if she "fled" Venezuela.

Machado's daughter Ana Corina Sosa Machado accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf and delivered remarks that her mother had written for the occasion.

"It reminds the world that democracy is essential to peace," read the remarks. "And the most important lesson Venezuelans can share with the world is a lesson forged on a long and difficult path: If we want democracy, we must be prepared to fight for freedom." 

Machado then gave her medal to US President Donald Trump in January as she sought Washington's support for her efforts.

Trump said just this week that he was "very honored to receive it indirectly last time by the recipient, who said nobody in history ‌deserves it more than President Trump."

https://p.dw.com/p/5NzHb

Skip next section Controversial Nobel Peace Prize winners

October 9, 2026

Controversial Nobel Peace Prize winners

Sabrina Müller-Plotnikow

From Yasser Arafat to the UN: Why did they receive a Nobel Peace Prize? It's a question asked almost every year in Oslo. Criticism of the award is as old as the prize itself.

https://p.dw.com/p/5NzFY

Skip next section IN DEPTH — The curse of Nobelitis

October 9, 2026

IN DEPTH — The curse of Nobelitis

After being chosen for one of the world's most prestigious awards, some Nobel laureates lose touch with reality and suddenly start spouting unscientific nonsense.

They're afflicted by what some have called "Nobelitis."

Read our analysis of what happens when winning a Nobel Prize can give you delusions of grandeur.

https://p.dw.com/p/5NzES

Skip next section Welcome to our coverage

October 9, 2026

Welcome to our coverage

Guten Tag from the DW newsroom in Bonn, Germany. Thanks for joining us as we count down to the announcement of this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner.

There will be a livestream of the event from around 0845 GMT at the top of the blog, complete with analysis of the ceremony and the award.

Nobel judges are banned from discussing and announcing the nominations, so any predictions are going to be guesswork at this stage.

The committee recieved nominations for 287 candidates this year. Just over a quarter of them are organizations.

No one is allowed to nominate themselves, but US President Donald Trump has said this week that he deserves to win.