Navi Pillay conferred Nobel Peace Prize

Saturday, 10 October 2026 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Navi Pillay

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay.

The announcement, made on Friday in Oslo, said that the prestigious award would go to the former South African jurist for her work to promote peace and international law.

The committee said in a statement that Pillay had been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.

The committee received nominations for 287 candidates for this year’s prize. Other mooted contenders had included the International Space Station, emergency teams in Sudan, children’s advocates in Ukraine and two top international courts.

United States President Donald Trump has long coveted the prize and repeatedly said he deserves it, despite his ongoing war in Iran.

She served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.

Navi Pillay visited Sri Lanka from 25 to 31 August 2013. She was the first senior UN official to visit since the war ended in 2009, even though Colombo had extended an invitation more than two years earlier. When her seven-day mission ended, she said the country was moving in an “increasingly authoritarian direction”. At the closing briefing, she also said that some media, ministers and bloggers had branded her a tool of the LTTE because of her Indian Tamil heritage.

In March 2014 she presented her office’s report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which was followed by debate on a US-sponsored resolution calling for her office to investigate wartime violations. As she was leaving office that August, she said she stood by the report and rejected claims that it was propaganda. In February 2021, as a former UN rights chief, she joined international experts urging the Council to hold the Government to account for failing to deliver justice and reconciliation after the war.