Navi Pillay named winner of 2026 Nobel peace prize for efforts to promote international law

The Nobel committee chair says the winner was ‘instrumental in ensuring war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted’

Navi Pillay, former chair of the independent international commission of inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Picture: Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to former UN human rights chief Navanethem “Navi” Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

Born in South Africa, Ms Pillay served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.

She also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court, and was president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. In the 1960s, she joined the legal defence against apartheid after graduating.

The 85-year-old was recognised for her efforts to promote peace and international law, said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

BREAKING NEWS
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2026 #NobelPeacePrize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law.#NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/97vurspw6z

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 9, 2026

“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,” the committee wrote in a news release.

“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.” 

Ms Pillay’s work “is a source of hope and inspiration to all those who seek to bring about a more peaceful world,” Mr Watne Frydnes said, announcing her win in the Norwegian capital Oslo.

Last year, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation. She was recognised as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness”.

Ms Machado gave US president Donald Trump her Nobel medal shortly after the United States ousted then-president Nicolás Maduro. However, this was largely a symbolic gesture, as the Nobel Committee has said the honour itself cannot be transferred.

Nominations can be made by a select group of people and organisations, including heads of state, politicians serving at national level, university professors, directors of foreign policy institutes, former Nobel laureates and members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Other Nobel prizes announced 

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the most prestigious honours on the planet (AP)

Four of this year’s Nobel prizes were announced earlier this week. The Nobel Prize in Medicine went to three scientists whose work led to a tool that uses light to help unravel how the brain works.

The Physics prize recognised a scientist’s efforts to advance understanding of neutrinos, while the Chemistry prize went to two scientists for their work on mirror-image molecules, with applications in drug development.

Canadian poet, essayist and translator Anne Carson won the Literature prize on Thursday for her “bold and inventive” works, which fuse the classical and modern and blur the boundaries between poetry and prose.

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on Monday.

The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (a little over €1m), whether the award goes to an individual, a small group of laureates or an organisation.