South African jurist Navi Pillay wins 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for decades of work advancing international law and prosecuting war crimes

South African jurist and former U.N. human rights chief Navanethem “Navi” Pillay has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday.

The committee said Pillay, 85, had played a major role in expanding the reach of international law and ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide could be prosecuted. It praised what it described as her “exceptional courage and integrity” during a legal career spanning more than five decades.

Pillay has served as a judge on South Africa’s High Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court, and was U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. She also chaired the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which concluded in 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza — a finding rejected by Israel.

Born into an Indian Tamil family in apartheid-era Durban, Pillay began her career representing anti-apartheid activists and political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela. She later became the first non-white woman appointed to South Africa’s High Court and served on the Rwanda tribunal that helped establish sexual violence as an act capable of constituting genocide.

The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 12 million Swedish kronor — about $1.2 million — will be formally presented in Oslo on December 10. Pillay succeeds Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who received the prize in 2025.