The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

Committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes said the 85-year-old had “with exceptional courage and integrity 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.

Pillay served as a judge on South Africa’s High Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. She was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.

She later chaired the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and co-founded the women’s rights group Equality Now. She now sits ad hoc on the International Court of Justice in Myanmar’s genocide trial.

The award carries prize money of 12 million Swedish kronor. Pillay became the first Black woman appointed to South Africa’s High Court after starting as a lawyer in 1967.