From the fight against apartheid to the United Nations: Nobel Peace Prize 2026 won by Navi Pillay

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has named the winner of the 2026 Peace Prize. It was 85-year-old lawyer from South Africa Navanethem "Navi" Pillay. The Committee noted its contribution “to the consolidation of peace and the establishment of international law”, as well as its key role in ensuring the inevitability of punishment for war crimes and genocide. This is reported by RIA “Novosti”.

In an official statement, the jury said that the desire for justice runs through Pillay’s activities – from defending Nelson Mandela to serving in the highest courts.

The biography of the laureate is inextricably linked to the history of the fight against discrimination. Navi Pillay was born in 1941 into a family of Indian Tamils in apartheid South Africa. In 1967, she became the first non-white woman to open a private law practice in Natal Province, and then the first non-white judge of the South African Supreme Court.

In the international arena, Pillay has served as a judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. From 2008 to 2014, she headed the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Until recently, Pillay chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and today, as a judge of the International Court of Justice, she is considering a lawsuit against Myanmar on charges of genocide.

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