• Ex-ICC official Navi Pillay dedicates award to survivors of international crimes; jokes about sharing it with Trump
• World leaders praise her commitment to justice, human rights
• Israel condemns award; US imposes sanctions on ICC after announcement
OSLO: Navi Pillay, a former International Criminal Court (ICC) judge who oversaw a UN report that concluded that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday “for her efforts to promote peace and international law”.
Giving the prize to Pillay, 85, who has been a judge on several international courts, including the ICC and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, underlined the importance of maintaining an organised international order, the Nobel committee said in its citation.
The Hague-based ICC has long been a target of US President Donald Trump, whose campaign against it has escalated since the court announced arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister last year.
“The system of international law is under tremendous pressure, and its institutions are under attack,” the Nobel committee said.
Pillay held states and national leaders accountable and brought hope to victims of violence and conflict, and demonstrated a firm moral compass in her long career, the committee said.
“This year’s laureate has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are prosecuted,” said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.
Pillay also chaired the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel dismissed the report at the time as “scandalous”.
Trump jibe
“The last thing I did is the delivery of the report on Gaza, naming what’s happening there as genocide,” Pillay told a crowd gathered to celebrate the award, according to a video posted on social media by the head of rights group Amnesty International.
“If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump,” she added, drawing laughter. Her remark appeared to refer to last year’s laureate, Maria Corina Machado, who gave her Nobel medal to the US president in January in an apparent bid to secure support for her campaign for a democratic Venezuela.
Trump has repeatedly said he deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Pillay later dedicated the award to “all the survivors of international crimes as well as to practitioners and defenders of international justice whose compassion and courage continue to ensure that impunity will not be allowed to reign”.
Addressing world leaders, she said, “You are under legal obligation … to protect human rights and refrain from war.”
Born in Durban, in South Africa’s Natal province, to a family of Indian Tamil origin, Pillay served as UN high commissioner for human rights from 2008 to 2014.
In 1967, she became the first woman to establish a law practice in Natal and after the end of apartheid, the first non-white woman to serve on South Africa’s High Court.
She was the fifth South African to win the Nobel Peace Prize, following Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Albert Luthuli.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Pillay’s victory honoured those who fought to defend international law and human rights.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the award was a “profound tribute to the veteran jurist’s courage, integrity and lifelong commitment to justice”. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Pillay for confronting “some of humanity’s darkest chapters”.
“She has looked the brutality of injustice in the eye and never looked away. She is the defender of the persecuted, the vulnerable, the voiceless and the excluded,” von der Leyen wrote on X.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk hailed the award as “a recognition, a reaffirmation that human rights, the rule of law and justice, and accountability are fundamental to everything, to peace, to security, and prosperity”.
ICC President Tomoko Akane said the award was particularly significant amid attacks on international law.
“At a time of profound challenges to the international legal order and the rule of law, this recognition carries particular significance,” Akane said in a statement.
US, Israel reaction
President Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on the ICC hours after Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize, setting Washington on a diplomatic collision course with European allies.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would ban transactions with what he called a “rogue court”.
The ICC’s deputy prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, condemned the sanctions, saying they would not halt the tribunal’s work.
Israel’s foreign ministry condemned the award, while the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Pillay a “bigot”.
Pakistan nominates Trump
Shortly before the announcement, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wrote on X that Pakistan had nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, praising his intervention in halting last year’s military conflict with India and securing a ceasefire.
He said he hoped Trump’s efforts to advance peace in South Asia would “receive due recognition this time”.
Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2026
