The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to Navi Pillay, a South African jurist who served as the fifth United Nations high commissioner for human rights, the selection committee announced Friday in Oslo. Pillay also served as president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and as a judge on the International Criminal Court. She is known for her harsh criticism of Israel, which she has accused, among other things, of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Following the announcement, Pillay was greeted with cheers and applause. She responded jokingly, “If you clap a little bit more I may share this prize with Trump.” According to the committee, Pillay was honored for her exceptional courage and integrity in advancing a more comprehensive international legal order. The committee also credited her with helping ensure the prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Navi Pillay, 2026 Nobel Peace Prize laureate
(Credit: Reuters)
Pillay recently chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” In September 2025, the commission issued a report concluding that “Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza.” The 72-page report said there were “reasonable grounds” to conclude that Israel had committed four of the five acts listed under the Genocide Convention since the start of the Gaza war: killing members of a group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately imposing conditions intended to bring about the group’s destruction and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
The commission also concluded that President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had “incited the commission of genocide.”
Pillay accused senior Israeli officials of seeking to establish permanent military control over Gaza and alter its demographic composition. She warned that the objectives of ethnic cleansing and establishing settlements in Gaza remained in place.
She also condemned Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s plan to annex 82% of the West Bank and Netanyahu’s approval of the E1 settlement expansion, describing the plans as “abhorrent” and saying they “must be condemned widely.”
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded since 1901 under the terms of the will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. Unlike the other categories of the prestigious Nobel Prizes, whose winners are selected by Swedish committees, the Peace Prize is awarded by a separate committee whose members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, as Nobel stipulated in his will.Recipients are selected according to the criteria set out in Nobel’s 1895 will, which states that the prize should go to the person who has done “the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” This year’s prize is worth 12 million Swedish kronor, approximately $1.2 million.
Navi Pillay, 2026 Nobel Peace Prize laureate
(Photo: Amit Shabi)
Thousands of people are eligible to submit nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize, including government officials, lawmakers, current heads of state, university professors in fields such as history, social sciences, law and philosophy and previous Nobel Peace Prize winners. This year, 287 candidates were nominated, but their identities will remain confidential for 50 years.
As in the previous year, President Donald Trump was among the nominees, although this time he did not exert as much pressure in his bid to win the prize as he did last year.
“I don’t know what their decision is going to be,” he said Wednesday. “They have a reputation for maybe not giving it to people like me.”
Announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize winner
(Photo: REUTERS/Tom Little)
Both individuals and organizations are eligible for the Nobel Peace Prize. Recent recipients include a Japanese organization campaigning for global nuclear disarmament, imprisoned Iranian women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi and human rights activists from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
The most recent sitting head of government to receive the prize was Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won in 2019 for his efforts to reconcile with Eritrea. His country subsequently descended into a bloody internal conflict.
Last year’s winner: Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado
(Photo: Rune Hellestad/Getty Images)
Nobel Prize week began Monday with the announcement of the winners in medicine: Prof. Karl Deisseroth of the United States and professors Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel of Germany, who were honored for their research into the “switch” that turns nerve cells in the brain on and off using flashes of light.
On Tuesday, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to American scientist Francis Louis Halzen, who discovered a new way to detect one of the most elusive particles, the neutrino, using a detector built in Antarctica.
On Wednesday, Henri Boris Kagan of France and Kenso Soai of Japan were announced as the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
On Thursday, Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics will be announced Monday.