South African jurist Navanethem Pillay, a former UN human rights chief of Indian Tamil origin, has been honoured at a time when the international legal order faces deep pressure.

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• The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on October 9, with committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes making the announcement.
• The prize goes to Navanethem Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law.
• Pillay is an 85-year-old South African jurist of Indian Tamil origin and a former UN human rights chief.
• She is reported to be the fifth South African national to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
• The committee linked her early work defending Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists with her later service as a judge in key international cases.
• She has served as a judge on South Africa's High Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court.
• She later served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and chaired the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
• That commission concluded last year that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, a finding Israel rejected as scandalous.
• Pillay is currently a judge ad hoc at the International Court of Justice, designated by The Gambia in its case against Myanmar under the Genocide Convention.
• The committee said the rule of law, national and international, underpins peace, and that peace requires justice at a time when international institutions face attacks.
• Pillay learned of the award while attending a legal conference in Nuremberg, where the first international criminal tribunal was set up after World War Two.
• The prize is worth 12 million Swedish kronor and will be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.

Tags: NobelPeacePrize, NavanethemPillay, InternationalLaw