Navi Pillay defends international justice after Nobel Peace Prize amid US criticism

The award and her reaction

The Norwegian Nobel Committee named Navi Pillay, a South African-born jurist, as the 2026 Nobel Peace laureate on 9 October in Oslo, citing her work promoting international law at a time when that system is under attack. Pillay, 85, told the Associated Press in an interview published on 12 October that as a judge she had to see the evidence before she could believe the news. "I received the letter in writing... so now I have read it for myself, and it's true," she said.

The award came on the 125th anniversary of the prize's inception. Committee chairman Jørgen Watne Frydnes said the committee 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 nonviolently. Peace requires justice

Career in international courts

Pillay's career includes defending Nelson Mandela while he was imprisoned, serving as a judge on three international courts, and leading a UN panel that found Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. In 1967 she became the first woman to open a law practice in Natal province. In 1995 she joined the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which she later presided over. A 1998 tribunal ruling held that rape and sexual violence can constitute genocide when committed with intent to destroy a protected group, and she took part in shaping that precedent. She later sat as a judge at the International Criminal Court and, from 2008 to 2014, served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Clashes with Washington and Israel

Her award is seen as a high-profile rebuke to US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who both rejected the findings of the UN commission she led on Gaza. Trump described the decision as "disgraceful" and "embarrassing" and said he had never heard of the South African jurist. Pillay called Washington's attacks on the International Criminal Court "completely unlawful" as well as "negative and cruel". She also pressed heads of state directly:

Heads of countries have a particular responsibility to spell out the principles, which is that you respect the law, you respect international law

Pillay called on countries to defend the court and the international legal order, saying she wanted "collective action, not just words" from the rest of the world. She said impunity is unpopular everywhere and that the public wants justice.

Criticism of the choice

The Nobel Foundation justified the choice by pointing to her defence of international law and decades of work demanding accountability from perpetrators of war crimes and human rights violations. Supporters argue that her willingness to denounce abuses by states, including Western allies and democracies, explains the prize's relevance. Critics say that stance has become political activism incompatible with the neutrality expected of an international legal figure. French international law specialist Yann Jurovics, a former lawyer at the International Court of Justice and at the tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, acknowledges her professional prestige but questions awarding a prize linked to a genocide accusation that no international jurisdiction has established. The International Court of Justice has not issued a definitive ruling on the matter. In a Le Figaro opinion column, lawyer and essayist Gilles-William Goldnadel argued that the members of the UN commission were biased against Israel.