South African Navi Pillay has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law.
She was at the forefront of developing an international legal order. Pillay studied law and soon began defending activists who stood up to apartheid. She grew up in a family of Indian Tamil descent in Durban, South Africa, where she founded her own law firm in 1967. In the 1980s, she studied at Harvard University and earned her Doctor of Juridical Science degree there in 1988.
Pillay was appointed to the High Court of South Africa in 1995. Four years later, she became a judge and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), where she gained distinction for her role in establishing that sexual violence and rape, as well as the spreading of propaganda, could lead to indictment for crimes against humanity and genocide. She was then named to serve as a judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC). From 2008 to 2014, she served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Pillay also chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory from 2021 to 2025, and in 2019 she became an ad hoc judge on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case in which Myanmar stands accused of genocide.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it values Pillay’s role as a driving force in developing an international system of law and order, while also emphasising her judicial rigour, personal integrity, and considerable courage.
"At a time when the number of wars and conflicts is rising, and when judges and institutions of international law are under political attack, the Nobel Committee wishes to issue a reminder that the ability to resolve conflicts without force or violence is dependent on the international rule of law. An international legal system in which war criminals are held to account, and the victims of abuse see justice served, is a precondition for a peaceful world," the committee said.
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