Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Former UN Rights Chief Navi Pillay

South African jurist and former United Nations human rights chief Navanethem, known as “Navi” Pillay has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday, 9 October.

The committee said Pillay, 85, had been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted. It added that she had held states and national leaders accountable and brought hope to victims of violence and conflict.

The committee added that Pillay had shown, through historic international court cases, that legal measures can help prevent war and violence, and that she had helped strengthen the institutions of international law.

The award comes at a time of heightened pressure on international courts. Hours after the announcement, the United States imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), where Pillay served as a judge from 2003 to 2008, Reuters reported.

The sanctions would prevent companies from providing services to the court. They go beyond earlier US measures, which targeted individual ICC judges and prosecutors. Washington has long objected to the ICC’s arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Reuters.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that, in its citation, the Nobel Committee had reminded the world that peace must be built on lasting principles, “not the will of the powerful.”

Pillay began her legal career under South Africa’s apartheid system. In 1973 she won a precedent-setting case protecting the legal rights of political prisoners on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was among those jailed.

She later served as a judge on South Africa’s High Court, at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and at the ICC, before becoming UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014, according to CNBC.

During her time at the Rwanda tribunal, which she later presided over, Pillay co-authored a landmark ruling that mass rape and sexual violence can constitute genocide.

More recently, she chaired a UN commission of inquiry into the occupied Palestinian territories. In September 2025, the commission concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel’s foreign ministry said it categorically rejected what it called a “distorted and false” report.

Pillay currently serves as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice in the case accusing Myanmar of genocide against its Rohingya minority, according to Al Jazeera.

Following the announcement, Pillay dedicated the award to all survivors of international crimes.

She is the fifth South African to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, after Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, and the first South African woman to win it.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be formally presented in Oslo on 10 December.

First awarded in 1901, the Nobel Peace Prize recognizes individuals and organizations for their contributions to peace. Established under the will of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, it is awarded annually in Oslo, Norway.