Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a South African jurist, won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The award recognises her decades-long fight for human rights and international law.Pillay was born in Durban to a Tamil Indian family and became the first non-white woman to open a legal practice in Natal Province in 1967. She defended anti-apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela, and exposed torture by security forces.Her international career included judge posts at the tribunal for Rwanda, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

As a judge, she helped establish that sexual violence and rape can be prosecuted as acts of genocide.From 2008 to 2014 she served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She later chaired a UN inquiry into violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Both the United States and Israel have rejected the inquiry’s findings.The committee said the award reminds the world that international law, not power, should resolve conflicts.

In Nuremberg, where she heard the news, Pillay joked: “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.”.