Navi Pillay wins the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on international law

South African jurist Navi Pillay won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, with the Norwegian Nobel Committee citing her efforts to promote peace and international law. The award recognizes a career that has taken her from defending anti-apartheid activists to senior roles in international courts and the United Nations. Pillay, 85, served as the UN high commissioner for human rights from 2008 to 2014. Before that, she spent eight years as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, including four as its president, and later served on the International Criminal Court. UN officials credit her work at the Rwanda tribunal with helping establish important jurisprudence on sexual violence, including its treatment as an act of genocide in appropriate circumstances. Her selection also puts renewed attention on disputes over international law. Pillay chaired the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, which concluded in 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. That was the commission’s finding, not a court judgment, and Israel has rejected it. The Nobel Committee framed the prize around Pillay’s wider contribution to international law and its institutions; the decision comes as those institutions face sharp political criticism. The committee’s chair, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, called Pillay’s commitment to justice and human dignity a source of hope. The Nobel gives her work unusually broad visibility, while also ensuring that her contested findings and the role of international courts will remain part of the public discussion. Reporting: [Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/f60744c07df969e50e9e69786fdb7de1). Background: [UN Regional Information Centre](https://unric.org/en/nobel-peace-prize-to-human-rights-pioneer-navi-pillay/). Photo: U.S. Mission Geneva via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).