OSLO — The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay “for her efforts to promote peace and international law,” saying she had “been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted,” according to the official announcement.
Born into a family of Indian Tamil origin under apartheid in Durban, Pillay defended Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists before serving as a judge on South Africa’s High Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. She was U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, chaired the U.N. commission of inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory until recently, and now sits as a judge at the International Court of Justice in the case in which Myanmar is accused of genocide. The committee credited her influence on the Rwanda tribunal’s landmark finding that rape and sexual violence could constitute genocide.
The committee said it could not reach Pillay, 85, before the announcement; she was at a meeting of human rights lawyers in Nuremberg, Germany, The Guardian reported. “The question is: is it true? Being a lawyer and a judge, I still want to verify it,” she said. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the award celebrated her contributions to “strengthen peace, uphold human dignity and bring hope.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemned the choice as “the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice”; the commission Pillay chaired concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, a finding Israel rejected.
The prize is worth 12 million Swedish kronor, about $1.2 million, and will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10. The committee received nominations for 287 candidates this year, Al Jazeera reported. The Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences will be announced Monday.
Sources: NobelPrize.org, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, NPR
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