South African human rights lawyer Navi Pillay wins Nobel Peace Prize : NPR

South African human rights lawyer Navi Pillay wins the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her lifelong defense of human rights and international law.

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

A South African lawyer who began her career defending Nelson Mandela and fighting apartheid has been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. At 85, Navi Pillay is being recognized for a lifetime defending human rights and strengthening international law, which the Nobel Committee says is now under threat. The announcement came just hours before the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court, an institution that the president has long criticized and where Pillay used to work. Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg has more.

KATE BARTLETT, BYLINE: Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, Venezuelan opposition politician Maria Corina Machado, famously gave her prize to President Trump, who has often said he deserves to win it.

(CHEERING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Bravo (ph).

BARTLETT: This year’s winner, Navi Pillay, joked she could follow suit.

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NAVI PILLAY: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.

(LAUGHTER)

BARTLETT: But all jokes aside, Nobel Committee Chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes said Pillay had been awarded the prize for her major role in establishing the global legal order, which he said was now under attack.

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JORGEN WATNE FRYDNES: The institutions that uphold international law is under tremendous pressure, sanctions and attack in the world we are living in with more conflicts in – than in a long time.

BARTLETT: Fittingly for a woman who’s dedicated her life to bringing war criminals to justice, Pillay learned she had won while attending a conference in Nuremberg, Germany, where top Nazis were tried after the Holocaust. In remarks to the press, she echoed the Nobel Committee’s warning about threats to the legal order.

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PILLAY: This worsening reality is particularly visible with the attacks on the International Criminal Court.

BARTLETT: Hours after her remarks, in an announcement that had been long anticipated, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. was imposing sanctions on the war crimes tribunal in the Hague, calling it a rogue court.

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MARCO RUBIO: America never joined the court. We don’t need that court, and we don’t want it.

BARTLETT: President Trump has long railed against the ICC, which has issued arrest warrants for Russia’s Vladimir Putin related to the invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza. Netanyahu slammed Pillay’s Peace Prize win in a statement on Friday because she recently oversaw a U.N. Commission report that concluded Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel denies. Netanyahu said the Nobel committee had, quote, “lost its moral compass.” But her home country, South Africa, applauded Pillay’s milestone.

ROELF MEYER: Congratulations to her because it’s – she is the fifth South African to receive the Nobel Prize and the first woman.

BARTLETT: South Africa’s new ambassador to Washington, Roelf Meyer, was among those celebrating the achievement. Pillay joins fellow South African laureates Albert Lutuli and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as well as Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, who shared the prize in 1993 for their role in ending apartheid.

MEYER: We are – South Africans are very, very proud of her. Navi Pillay made us very proud.

BARTLETT: Meyer told NPR she was a product of the South African legal order that was established at the start of democracy following the end of apartheid. But Pillay’s award comes amid a diplomatic low point between the U.S. and South Africa. President Trump has falsely accused the government of persecuting its white minority and criticized its genocide case against Israel. Kate Bartlett, NPR News, Johannesburg.

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