The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday to Navi Pillay, an 85-year-old South African jurist whose career runs from defending anti-apartheid detainees in Durban courtrooms to presiding over international war-crimes tribunals, the committee announced in Oslo.

Committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes told reporters the panel had not yet been able to reach Pillay by phone to tell her she had won, even as it went ahead with the public announcement at the Norwegian Nobel Institute. The committee cited her decades of work "ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted," according to its citation.

From Durban courtrooms to The Hague

Pillay opened her own law practice in Durban in 1967 — one of the few paths open to a woman of color barred from most firms under apartheid — and spent years representing political detainees rounded up by the South African government. In 1973, she helped secure landmark access to lawyers for political prisoners held on Robben Island, the same prison that held Nelson Mandela.

After apartheid's collapse, Pillay became an acting judge on South Africa's High Court in 1995, the same year the United Nations General Assembly elected her to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She spent eight years on that tribunal, the last four as its president, and sat on a panel that issued one of international law's defining rulings: that rape can constitute an act of genocide.

"A GREAT AND INSPIRED CHOICE"

She went on to serve as the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014 and later as a judge at the International Criminal Court. Amnesty International called her selection "a great and inspired choice" for the award, while the Peace Research Institute Oslo said the prize sends a message that "peace depends not only on political leadership, but on strong, credible international institutions."

Pillay's honors already included the inaugural Gruber Prize for Women's Rights in 2003, multiple honorary degrees, a role as commissioner of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty starting in 2015, and the 2025 Sydney Peace Prize. The Nobel is widely seen as the capstone of a career spent largely outside the spotlight occupied by more famous human-rights campaigners.

The win continues a recent pattern of the committee favoring institution-builders and civil-society figures over sitting politicians — last year's prize went to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for her work on democratic rights. The committee said it reviewed 287 nominations for this year's prize, 208 individuals and 79 organizations, though under Nobel rules the names of other nominees stay sealed for 50 years.

What's next

Pillay will formally receive the prize, worth 9 million Swedish kronor (roughly $900,000), at a ceremony in Oslo on December 10 — the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. The committee has not yet said when, or whether, it managed to reach her directly with the news.