Taunting the Bullies: Navi Pillay Wins the Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is an institution long stuffed with straw. Established by the inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel, its very creation suggested less contrition than a dark sense humour restless for recognition. That humour surfaces from time to time, usually when it comes to the choice of candidates. Former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger remains a delightful example, showing how a mind amenable to conflict, coups and destabilisation can still be acknowledged by a Nobel Prize committee.

For some reason, 2026 proved to be a year when sober minds prevailed on the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Their choice of South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a former International Criminal Court (ICC) justice, was conspicuously apposite. Her credentials positively glisten. In addition to being a former ICC jurist she was an opponent of apartheid in the country of her birth, a previous judge of the South African High Court, a former bench member of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights then chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The Committee attached “importance to Navi Pillay’s role as a driving force in the development of an international system of law and order, while further emphasising her judicial rigour, personal integrity and considerable courage.” Members acknowledged the importance of the international rule of law at a moment “when the number of wars and conflicts is rising, and when judges and institutions of international law are under political attack”. No peaceful world can be envisaged in the absence of holding war criminals accountable and aiding victims of abuse to “see justice served”.

This was not the sort of profile that excited US President Donald Trump, sworn opponent of international institutions and the tempering nature of international law and custom. Then again, when asked about Pillay, he claimed that he had “never heard” of this “mystery person”. Despite this, he was sufficiently peeved to suggest that the committee’s choice would leave “an indelible stain on the country of Norway”. This ignored, he fumed, his own spotless record on alleged peacemaking (eight wars settled, with two more in the works). “The Nobel Peace Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and really enemies of civilisation.” Maintaining a good grasp of humour, Pillay mockingly offered to “share this prize with Trump” to an audience that had gathered to congratulate her at Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice, provided they “clap a little bit more”.

The most violent spring of indignation was bound to come from Israel, a country that has featured much in Pillay’s deliberations. Her stewardship of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry led to the publication, in September 2025, of a report arguing that four of the five elements outlined in the 1948 Genocide Convention had been met by Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. The relevant acts outlined in the report included instances of killing, perpetrating serious bodily or mental harm, the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births, all conducted with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian people as a group. The Commission also found that key officials, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant had “incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement.” Israeli authorities and security forces “had and continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

The response from the Israeli Foreign Ministry was shrill and distasteful. “If there were an award for lies, hatred, and blood libels, Navi Pillay wouldn’t just be a contender. She’d be a frontrunner.” Drawing from that long available well of Holocaust symbology, the ministry had another observation: “Now that the Nobel commission has rewarded the biggest lie of the 21^st century, Joseph Goebbels is certainly applauding from hell.” The implicit suggestion here is that identity, not a course of action, determines accountability in a legal sense. Accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza promoted “the genoLIE” while awarding Pillay the prize was a “grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice.” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, also chose the old trick of back door denigration. “When the Hamas terrorist organization praises Navi Pillay for winning the Nobel Peace Prize,” he spluttered in a social media post, “that tells you everything you need to know about her and the Nobel Committee.”

The Jerusalem Post thought it would tarnish the choice of awardee with its own splash of slime already thrown by the Foreign Ministry and its obedient servants. “The terrorist organization welcomed the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to honor Pillay, a former UN High commissioner for human rights who chaired a commission of inquiry that concluded that Israel had committed genocide in the Gaza Strip.” The paper would do well to acknowledge that the designation of terrorist is not conclusive in the matter of determining an award of peace: swords can be turned into ploughshares.

Nir Hasson in Haaretz offered a far more refreshing appraisal on the issue. “In her reports, Israelis can find not only detailed documentation of crimes by both sides but also evidence and conclusions on Israel’s failure to protect its citizens. To some extent, Pillay also entered the vacuum created by the government’s refusal to form a state commission of inquiry.” Hasson saliently notes the response from Israeli authorities as reflecting “the chasm that has opened in the last decade between Israel on the one side and UN agencies and the mainstream of international law on the other.” The anathemising of Pillay is all too evident of that chasm, one that sees every chance of growing in the foreseeable future.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: [email protected]