ICJ judge Navi Pillay wins Nobel Peace Prize for advancing international law and prosecuting war crimes

Navi Pillay was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her work promoting international law and prosecuting war crimes.

Pillay is 85. She is a South African lawyer of Indian Tamil origin born under apartheid in Durban, and she is currently serving as a judge at the International Court of Justice. Her chairing of a UN commission that concluded Israel was guilty of genocidal acts in Gaza made the award immediately explosive, and the Israeli foreign ministry reacted furiously.

Gaza findings and Israel’s fury

The commission’s findings were published in September last year. It concluded Israel was guilty of genocidal acts ‘with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza’, and said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and former defence minister Yoav Gallant had ‘incited the commission of genocide’. Israel had refused to cooperate with the commission, arguing it was biased, and rejected its report as ‘scandalous’. After Friday’s announcement, the Israeli foreign ministry took to X to denounce the decision. ‘If there were an award for lies, hatred, and blood libels, Navi Pillay wouldn’t just be a contender. She’d be a frontrunner,’ the ministry wrote, adding: ‘Now that the Nobel commission has rewarded the biggest lie of the 21st century, Joseph Goebbels is certainly applauding from hell.’

Nuremberg irony and a call from Oslo

Pillay was attending a meeting of human rights lawyers and jurists in Nuremberg, Germany, at the site of the postwar Nazi war crimes trials when she heard the news. The Norwegian Nobel Committee was unable to reach Pillay before announcing the award. Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told reporters from Oslo that his message to her would be: ‘if you see a Norwegian number calling, please pick up.’ Pillay responded in disbelief. ‘I don’t know about it so much. The question is: is it true? Being a lawyer and a judge, I still want to verify it,’ she said. ‘The last thing I did was the report on Gaza naming what’s happening there as genocide,’ Pillay added.

From apartheid to The Hague

Pillay defended Nelson Mandela under South Africa’s apartheid regime. She served as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and later as a judge at the International Criminal Court. She served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. She is currently overseeing a genocide case against Myanmar at the ICJ.

Nobel committee citation

The committee said it wanted ‘to remind the world that the rule of law – national and international – underpins the system we have set up to ensure peace and resolve conflicts non-violently.’ It praised Pillay’s record, saying: ‘Her independence, expertise and steadfastness have made her one of the most respected international jurists of our time.’ Frydnes pointed to the arc of her career, from ‘standing and supporting Nelson Mandela and the prisoners of Robben Island to her being a key in all the major international court cases of our time.’ The prize is given to a person or institution that has ‘done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations,’ per Alfred Nobel’s will, and the winner is selected by a committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament.

Pride in South Africa

President Cyril Ramaphosa praised the award, saying: ‘Justice Pillay’s crowning as winner of the Nobel Prize allows us to celebrate the progressive contributions she has made to strengthen peace, uphold human dignity and bring hope in South Africa and to peoples globally.’ Retired constitutional court justice Edwin Cameron linked Pillay to earlier South African laureates, saying the award showed ‘that leaders of great stature in our country – [Desmond] Tutu, Mandela, now Pillay – are recognised outside it, on the international stage.’

The Trump subplot

Last year’s prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who later gave her Nobel medal to Donald Trump. The Nobel committee stated that the prize cannot be transferred or shared. Trump had openly campaigned for the prize, and on Wednesday claimed he had settled eight wars in a fresh bid for the award. In 2026, Nobel laureates receive 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million).