Navi Pillay wins 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her fight to hold war criminals accountable
Former South African judge Navi Pillay has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on international law and prosecuting war crimes. Here is what we know
PTC Web Desk: Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, the South African judge and human rights champion, has been named winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the 125th award in Oslo on Friday, honouring her decades of work to strengthen international law and hold perpetrators of the gravest crimes to account.
The committee credited Pillay with helping ensure that genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes are brought before courts rather than ignored. It argued that in a period marked by more armed conflicts than the world has faced in many years, international law has become essential to peace and security rather than a mere complement to them.
Committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes warned that the global legal order is under heavy strain and that the institutions that uphold it are being attacked. He described judges as the people who “guard the thin red line between order and chaos.”
Pillay, 85, was born in South Africa to a family of Indian Tamil descent. Early in her career, she defended anti-apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela, himself a Nobel Peace laureate.
Her later career took her to the world’s most prominent legal bodies. She served on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court, and later became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She is currently a judge at the International Court of Justice, where she sits on the genocide case against Myanmar.
This year’s prize drew 287 nominations. Names widely discussed as possible winners included the International Space Station, emergency response teams in Sudan, advocates for children in Ukraine, and two leading international courts.
US President Donald Trump has often said he deserves the prize, and he has long been open about wanting it. His case has been complicated by the ongoing war with Iran.
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