Navi Pillay, a South African lawyer and former UN high commissioner for human rights, has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee in Oslo announced on Friday. Pillay has accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The committee honoured her for courage and integrity in building a more inclusive international legal order, and for helping to bring war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide to court. Pillay was president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and a judge at the International Criminal Court.
Until recently she chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In September 2025 the commission published a 72-page report that said: "Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza". The report said Israel has carried out four of the five acts listed in the Genocide Convention since the war in Gaza began. The commission says there are "reasonable grounds" to conclude that Israel killed members of a group, caused serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately imposed conditions meant to destroy the group, and took steps to prevent births within the group.
US President Donald Trump was among the nominees again, though he lobbied less for the prize this year than last. On Wednesday Trump said he did not know what the committee would decide. "They have a reputation that maybe they don't give it to people like me," he added.
Last year the prize went to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for her fight for democracy in Venezuela. After the US captured President Nicolás Maduro, she gave her Nobel medal to Trump. He backed Maduro's vice-president Delcy Rodríguez, who is now president and works with his administration, while Machado still cannot return to Venezuela.
Recent winners include a Japanese organisation campaigning for global nuclear disarmament, jailed Iranian women's rights activist Narges Mohammadi, and human rights campaigners from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The last sitting head of government to win was Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, honoured in 2019 for making peace with Eritrea. An internal conflict later broke out in Ethiopia.
The peace prize has been awarded since 1901. It was set up in the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. Under his wishes, a separate committee decides it, with members appointed by the Norwegian parliament, while Swedish committees award the other Nobel prizes. According to the will, it goes to the person who has done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for abolishing or reducing standing armies, and for holding and promoting peace congresses.
There are 287 candidates this year, and their names stay secret for 50 years. Thousands of people can nominate, including government officials, lawmakers, sitting heads of state, university professors of history, social sciences, law and philosophy, and past peace laureates. The prize can go to individuals or to organisations. This year's prize money is 12m Swedish kronor, about $1.2m.
Nobel week began on Monday with medicine. The prize went to Prof Karl Deisseroth of the US, and Prof Peter Hegemann and Prof Georg Nagel of Germany, for their studies of the "switch" that turns nerve cells in the brain on and off with pulses of light. On Tuesday the physics prize went to US scientist Francis Louis Halzen for a new way to catch neutrinos with a detector in Antarctica. On Wednesday the chemistry prize went to Henri Boris Kagan of France and Kensuke Soai of Japan, and on Thursday the literature prize went to Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson.
The Nobel prize in economics will be announced on Monday.