The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, the South African judge whose career has run from defending opponents of apartheid to some of the most important war crimes cases of modern times.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said in Oslo on Friday that she was being honoured "for her efforts to promote peace and international law". It described her as a person who, "with exceptional courage and integrity", had led the way towards a more comprehensive global legal order.

The committee said she had been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted. She receives the prize alone.

From Durban to The Hague

Ms Pillay was born on 23 September 1941 in Durban, into a family of Indian Tamil descent living under apartheid. She trained as a lawyer and confronted what the committee called "deep structural discrimination, segregation and exclusion".

In 1967 she founded her own law firm in Durban, and went on to defend Nelson Mandela and other activists who stood up against the apartheid regime. In the 1980s she studied at Harvard University, earning a Doctor of Juridical Science degree in 1988.

After the end of apartheid she was appointed to the High Court of South Africa in 1995. Four years later she became a judge, and later president, of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, set up after the 1994 genocide.

A landmark on sexual violence

It was at the Rwanda tribunal that she made one of her most lasting marks. The committee highlighted her role in establishing that rape and sexual violence, as well as the spreading of propaganda, could lead to indictment for crimes against humanity and genocide.

That principle changed how international courts treat sexual violence in war — no longer as a side effect of conflict, but as a possible instrument of genocide in its own right.

She later served as a judge at the International Criminal Court, and from 2008 to 2014 as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Gaza commission and Myanmar case

From 2021 to 2025 Ms Pillay chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel. The commission's work was welcomed by Palestinian officials and human rights groups, while Israel refused to cooperate with it and accused it of bias. The committee's citation does not comment on the commission's findings.

Since 2019 she has also served as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice in the case in which Myanmar is accused of genocide against the Rohingya. Myanmar denies the accusation.

A message to a world at war

The committee framed the award as a defence of international law at a moment of crisis. It noted that the world is facing more wars and conflicts than it has seen in a long time, and that judges and institutions of international law are under political attack.

"International law is no longer just a supplement to peace and security," the committee said. "It is an absolute necessity."

It acknowledged the imperfections of the rules-based order, saying the greatest powers had often evaded responsibility and that cases had produced different results depending on who the perpetrator and the victim were.

Even so, it argued that more conflicts are now being addressed through diplomacy, treaties and legal mechanisms rather than threats and warfare. A legal system in which war criminals are held to account and victims see justice served is, it said, "a precondition for a peaceful world".

125 years of the prize

The committee pointed out that the first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded 125 years ago, and that the importance of resolving conflicts through international law had been a theme from the very beginning.

The reach of that law expanded after the Second World War with the creation of the United Nations, and again after the Cold War, when tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda were established and the International Criminal Court was founded.

Ms Pillay's career spans almost the whole of that modern history. Her supporters see the award as recognition of a lifetime spent turning legal principles into judgments. Her critics, particularly over the Gaza inquiry, are likely to see it as a political choice.

The prize, worth 11 million Swedish kronor, will be presented in Oslo on 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.