Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to South African Judge Navi Pillay

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that South African judge Navi Pillay, formerly the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "her efforts in promoting peace and international law."
The committee added: "There is a common thread running from her early days defending Nelson Mandela and others who fought against the apartheid system to her work as a judge in some of the most important cases before international courts in our time."

The Peace Prize is the fifth Nobel Prize awarded this week following the prizes in Literature, Chemistry, Physics, and Medicine. Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado had won the Peace Prize in 2025.
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 12 million Swedish kronor (approximately $1.2 million), is scheduled to be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who established the prizes in his will in 1895.