South African human rights pioneer and former United Nations rights chief Navi Pillay won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.
According to NBC News, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday, October 9, to the South African legal pioneer Navanethem “Navi” Pillay for defending international law and institutions in a world in which increasingly “might overtakes right.”
The 85-year-old has a decadeslong career that spans defending Nelson Mandela and standing up against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, to leading a United Nations commission that concluded Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
“Navi Pillay is one of the great defenders of international legal principles in our time,” said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Using the award to make a wider point about geopolitics, Frydnes contrasted Pillay’s work with the wider international “shift towards power politics,” in which “international law is under tremendous pressure, and its institutions are under attack.”
Her “distinguished career reminds us of the need to support, fortify and expand the global rule of law,” he said.
“Navi Pillay’s commitment to justice and human dignity is a source of hope and inspiration to all who seek to bring about a more peaceful world,” he added.
Who is Navi Pillay?
Pillay became the first woman to start a law practice in South Africa's Natal Province back in 1967.
A bus driver's daughter from a poor Indian section of Durban in South Africa, Pillay grew up and began her human rights work during the apartheid era and became the first non-white woman to establish her own law practice and to be appointed as a High Court Judge in South Africa.
After defending many opponents of apartheid, Pillay was elected as judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda by the UN General Assembly.
She served on the tribunal for eight years, including four years as president.
Until recently, Pillay chaired the the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and is currently a judge on the International Court of Justice in the case where Myanmar stands accused of genocide.
