Former ICC judge Navi Pillay wins 2026 Nobel Peace Prize

"We see a ​shift towards power politics at the expense of legal frameworks and global respect for law and justice. Whenever might overtakes ​right, it undermines stability, trust and peaceful co-existence.

"Born in Durban, in South Africa's Natal province, in a ⁠family of Indian Tamil origin, Navi Pillay, 85, has been a judge on several international courts, including the International Criminal Court and ​the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

She was also chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory that concluded last ​year that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Israel dismissed the report as "scandalous". She has also served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In 1967 she became the first woman to start a law practice in Natal and the first non-white woman to serve on South Africa's High Court. 'FIRM MORAL COMPASS'Pillay held ​states and national leaders accountable and brought hope to victims of violence and conflict, and demonstrated a firm moral compass in her ​long career, said the committee.

"A common thread runs from her early work defending Nelson Mandela and others who stood up against apartheid to her service ‌as a ⁠judge in some of the key international court cases of our time," said the citation.

The Hague-based ICC has been the target of an escalating campaign by US President Donald Trump, who last month urged countries to leave it. Washington has already imposed targeted sanctions on several prosecutors and judges at the court and,, is considering wider sanctions in retaliation for the targeting of Israeli leaders.

The committee was not directly criticising ​Trump by rewarding Pillay, according ​to Haakon Gjerloew, acting director ⁠of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. "I think it's generally rather a promotion of an international legal world order.

Of course, he might react to someone who has been part of the ICC, but it's ​not a direct attack on Trump," Gjerloew said. The peace prize is the fifth Nobel awarded this ​week, after literature, chemistry, physics and medicine.

Venezuelan ⁠opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won in 2025. The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 12 million Swedish crowns, or about $1.2 million, is due to be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards, opens new tab in his 1895 will.