South African jurist and former United Nations human rights chief Navanethem “Navi” Pillay has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.
Announcing the award on Friday, Norwegian Nobel Committee praising her decades-long work advancing international law, human rights, and accountability for some of the world’s gravest crimes in helping build a more comprehensive global legal order and crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.
Born on September 23, 1941 in Durban, South Africa, Ms. Navanethem “Navi” Pillay is a South African Tamil origin was the first non-white female judge of the High Court of South Africa had served as the chief of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.
Pillay became one of South Africa’s pioneering female lawyers during apartheid, representing anti-apartheid activists.
Currently she serves as a judge at the International Court of Justice in proceedings concerning allegations of genocide against Myanmar.
She had also served as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the International Criminal Court (ICC), South Africa’s High Court.
More recently, she chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The Nobel Peace Prize, first awarded in 1901, marks its 125th anniversary this year.
With this, South Africa now has five Nobel Peace Prize recipients making her 1st woman and the 5th person to receive the prestigious award in South Africa.
Meanwhile, SIPRI congratulates Navanethem ‘Navi’ Pillay on the award of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, ‘for her efforts to promote peace and international law’.
‘In awarding the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Judge Navi Pillay, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sent an extremely powerful message about the need to strengthen the rule of law as a pillar of peace and justice,’ said SIPRI Director Karim Haggag.
Based on ednews.africa and SIPRI press note.
