Navi Pillay, a 85-year-old South African judge, has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her work promoting peace and international law over a decades-long career spanning the UN, international criminal courts and human rights investigations.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited her efforts to ensure prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes said her work had been "instrumental" in building "a more comprehensive global legal order" at a time when international law is "an absolute necessity" amid rising global conflicts.
Pillay served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (including four years as its president), and was elected to the International Criminal Court in 2003. She currently sits as a judge on the International Court of Justice in the case where Myanmar faces genocide accusations over treatment of Rohingya people.
Her background includes defending anti-apartheid activists in South Africa during apartheid, becoming the first woman to establish a law practice in Natal Province in 1967 and the first non-white woman appointed to South Africa's high court. She becomes the country's fifth Nobel Peace Prize winner, joining Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Pillay was notified of the award in Nuremberg's Palace of Justice, where she reacted by saying "it must be a joke" before joking she might share the prize with US President Donald Trump.
She dedicated the award to "all the survivors of international crimes" and justice practitioners "whose compassion and courage continue to ensure that impunity will not be allowed to reign."
Her selection has drawn criticism. Israel's Foreign Ministry called the award a "grotesque weaponisation" in response to Pillay's role chairing the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory from 2021-25. That commission concluded Israel committed genocidal acts in Gaza and said Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant had "incited" genocide through their statements. Israel rejected the findings and accused panel members of serving as "Hamas proxies."
The commission also concluded Hamas and Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes on October 7, 2023. The Nobel Committee chair stated the organization was not taking a position on whether the Israeli offensive in Gaza amounted to genocide.
UN Secretary General António Guterres called Pillay "a steadfast, independent voice of justice amidst some of the most historic international legal cases of our time."