South African jurist Navanethem "Navi" Pillay has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize "for her efforts to promote peace and international law". The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the award in Oslo on Friday 9 October, the 125th time the prize has been given. Pillay, 85, becomes the fifth South African to win it, after Chief Albert Luthuli, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk.

The committee could not reach her before the announcement. "I don't believe it until I hear it from you," she told the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute when he called.

Pillay was born into a family of Indian Tamil origin in Durban under apartheid and became a lawyer who defended Nelson Mandela and other activists who stood against the system. From there, she built one of the most significant careers in international law.

She served as a judge on the High Court in South Africa, as a judge and president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 1999 to 2003, and on the appeals chamber of the International Criminal Court from 2003 to 2008. She was then the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The committee singled out two legal breakthroughs from the Rwanda tribunal. Her influence was significant in establishing that rape and sexual violence can constitute a crime against humanity and genocide, and in the first case where a defendant was charged with incitement to commit genocide purely for spreading propaganda. Until recently, she chaired the UN commission of inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which concluded last year that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, a finding Israel rejects.

Today she is an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice in the case in which Myanmar is accused of genocide. The prize is worth 12 million Swedish crowns, about R20 million, and will be presented in Oslo on 10 December.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the prize goes to a person who, with exceptional courage and integrity, has led the way towards a more comprehensive global legal order, at a time when international law is under tremendous pressure, and its institutions are under attack. President Cyril Ramaphosa said the award allows South Africa to celebrate the contributions she has made to strengthen peace and uphold human dignity, as reported by TechFinancials.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called her a steadfast, independent voice of justice. Not everyone welcomed it. Al Jazeera reported that US President Donald Trump posted that the committee had demeaned the prize, as the White House imposed further sanctions on the International Criminal Court.

Whatever view readers take of individual cases she has ruled on, the scale of the achievement is hard to argue with. A lawyer who started out defending activists in apartheid South Africa went on to sit on the courts that prosecuted genocide and set legal precedents now used around the world.

The precedents the committee chose to highlight are concrete: sexual violence recognised as a crime against humanity and genocide, and propaganda treated as incitement to genocide. That last one has only grown more relevant as the tools for spreading propaganda have become cheaper and faster.

Pillay now joins a short list of South Africans whose work has been recognised at this level, and she did it through the slow, technical work of law rather than politics. It is a reminder that some of the most consequential careers South Africa has produced were built in courtrooms.

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