Judge Navi Pillay wins the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize
South African lawyer and human rights activist Navanethem "Navi" Pillay has been announced as the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Pillay served as a judge at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague from 2003 to 2008 and then as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights until 2014. Just a few hours after the Nobel Prize Committee in Oslo announced its decision on Friday, the US tightened its sanctions against the ICC.
Law against might
In El País, Javier Cremades of the NGO World Jurist Association stresses the importance of respect for the law, especially now:
“Growing political polarisation has led to a proliferation of legal disputes over issues of enormous public import in democracies. Judges have had to apply the law in increasingly complex circumstances. ... Often their decisions have not been accepted. ... This constant effort to delegitimise judges undermines the rule of law and democracy. ... With her composure, integrity and intellectual rigour, Navi Pillay reminds us that there is only one genuine alternative for shaping the way we live together. ... Either we are governed by a party, a leader – in short, by those who wield the power – or we are governed by the law.”
Nobel Committee doing politics
Die Welt criticises the decision:
“The fact that of all human rights defenders it is Pillay who is being honoured, at precisely this point in time, reinforces – at least implicitly – an allegation against Israel the veracity of which is highly contested and currently the subject of legal proceedings: that of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. This accusation was made last year by a UN commission chaired by Pillay. ... While the Nobel Committee claims to be only supporting the unifying principles of international law, it is tacitly taking sides in a dispute – in favour of one side and against the other, namely Israel, a UN member state. ... International law opens up the path of rational discourse, which assigns rights and responsibilities to all sides. The Nobel Committee, by contrast, is engaging in politics, and that is an entirely different matter.”
Support for the international legal order
NRC criticises the new US sanctions against the ICC following the announcement:
“The implications [of Trump's attacks] go beyond the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court or the term of office of any single US president. What is at stake here is the very principle of international justice: the conviction that even powerful people must abide by the rules, and that it is the law – not arbitrary power – that prevails and sets the global standards. ... This year's award is an endorsement of all the international institutions that together form the framework upon which the international legal order rests.”