By Ott Ummelas.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Navi Pillay for her work as a judge and human rights lawyer, at a time when the committee said international law faces “tremendous pressure” and its institutions are “under attack.”
Pillay, 85, has “held states and national leaders accountable and brought hope to victims of violence and conflict,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement on Friday, calling her “one of the great defenders of international legal principles.”
Pillay is currently serving as a judge at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, in the case in which Myanmar stands accused of genocide.
Last year, she chaired the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which investigated Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza and concluded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration had committed genocide against Palestinians, a finding that the Israeli government firmly denounced.
World of ‘power politics’
In what appeared to be a swipe at Netanyahu, and some other leaders around the world, including US President Donald Trump, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the committee, spoke of “a shift towards power politics at the expense of legal frameworks and global respect for law and justice.”
He told reporters in Oslo that the prize served as “a message that international law and its institutions are the cornerstone of a more peaceful world.”
Born into an Indian Tamil family in Durban, South Africa, Pillay founded her own law firm in 1967 and earned a doctorate from Harvard University in 1988.
She has served as a judge in South Africa, at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and was UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.
Her work helped influence the definition of acts that can constitute genocide and crimes against humanity, including rape and sexual violence — and because of it a defendant in Rwanda faced charges of incitement to commit genocide purely on the basis of spreading propaganda.
“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,” the committee said.
Arguably the most prestigious prize in global diplomacy, the Nobel Peace Prize can also stir controversy.
Last year, Trump campaigned aggressively, and ultimately unsuccessfully, to obtain the award, which he has long coveted. Earlier this year, the 2025 laureate María Corina Machado gifted her medal to the US president, stunning Norway.
Pillay, who will receive 12 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million) in prize money, wasn’t among the favorites. Ahead of the award, there were wild swings in betting on the Polymarket platform, with Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny emerging as the frontrunner overnight, trailed closely by Mykola Kuleba, Ukrainian children’s rights activist.
At the time of Friday’s announcement, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said it had not succeeded in reaching Pillay. She received the news while attending the Nuremberg Forum, a gathering to discuss international law in Nuremburg, Germany, where she got a standing ovation, according to the Associated Press.
“Your applause means a great deal to me,” she was quoted as telling those in attendance. “You know, you don’t want to receive an award, prize or anything unless public agrees that you deserve this. She added: “But being a lawyer and a judge, I still want to verify this information.”
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