STOCKHOLM, October 9. /TASS/. The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to South African lawyer and human rights activist Navanethem (Navi) Pillay, who served as the UN high commissioner for human rights in 2008-2014, the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated.

The laureate was honored "for her efforts to promote peace and international law," the statement said.

According to the committee, the 2026 Peace Prize "goes to a person who with exceptional courage and integrity has led the way towards a more comprehensive global legal order." "This year’s laureate has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted," the statement noted.

Pillay, 85, was born into a family of Indian Tamils in apartheid-era South Africa and became a pioneering lawyer who "confronted deep structural discrimination, segregation and exclusion." In 1967, she became the first "non-white" woman to open her own law practice in the province of Natal and was the first "non-white" woman to serve on the High Court of South Africa.

"A common thread runs from her early work defending Nelson Mandela and others who stood up against apartheid to her service as a judge in some of the key international court cases of our time," the committee explained, noting that this year’s laureate "has significantly enlarged the scope and impact of international law."

Pillay has served as a judge on the High Court of South Africa, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the International Criminal Court. She served as the UN high commissioner for human rights and, until recently, chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Today, Pillay is a judge on the International Court of Justice, which is hearing a case in which Myanmar is accused of genocide.