South African judge Navanethem “Navi” Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday “for her efforts to promote peace and international law,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
“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 said.
The peace prize is the fifth Nobel awarded this week, after literature, chemistry, physics and medicine. Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won the award in 2025.
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 12 million Swedish crowns, or about $1.2 million, is due to be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.
Navanethem 'Navi' Pillay was born in Durban South Africa to immigrant parents of Tamil origin in 1941. She attended the University of Natal where she earned a Bachelor of Arts and later a Bachelor of Law.
In 1967, she started her own law firm, becoming the first woman to ever do so in her home province of Natal, South Africa. She was also the first non-white woman to serve as a judge in the High Court of South Africa.
Pillay has served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights under Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon from 2008-2014.
She also served on various international legal roles including President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, a judge of the International Criminal Court and a Commissioner of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty.
One of the Pillay's notable cases is one of The Prosecutor v Jean-Paul Akayesu where Pillay established an international legal precedent that considered rape as a form of genocide and a crime against humanity.
She currently serves as an adhoc judge of the International Court of Justice in the case of Gambia v Myanmar.
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Russia and Ukraine have begun a regional ceasefire to allow the start of a humanitarian effort in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky, both sides said on Tuesday, but they continue strikes elsewhere, including the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
The Middle East conflict remains tense as diplomatic efforts continue alongside renewed Houthi attacks. Iran says it remains open to mediation, while the Saudi-led coalition says it intercepted a ballistic missile fired towards the kingdom.
Rescuers picked through mangled carriages on Thursday in a grim search for victims of Spain's second fatal high-speed train crash this year, as the death toll rose to 69 and hopes of finding further survivors faded.
At least 68 people have been killed after two high-speed trains collided in Spain on Wednesday, in the second deadly rail disaster in less than a year on a major route linking Madrid with the southern Andalusia region.
Rescuers picked through mangled carriages on Thursday in a grim search for victims of Spain's second fatal high-speed train crash this year, as the death toll rose to 69 and hopes of finding further survivors faded.
Russian drone strikes killed at least 19 people across Ukraine on Thursday, including 14 at a crowded railway station in Dnipro, three in Kremenchuk and two teenage girls in Chernihiv, Ukrainian officials said.
A six-day U.S.-brokered ceasefire near the Ukrainian city of Kherson has brought a rare respite from Russian attacks, offering war-weary residents a brief return to normality. But fears remain that the violence could erupt again at any moment.
Here's your AnewZ Daily Brief for 29 October 2026, exploring five global flashpoints where diplomatic efforts are colliding with growing military threats, from renewed hopes for peace in the Middle East and Ukraine to warnings of wider instability in Africa and Asia.
North Korea fired around 10 ballistic missiles toward the sea off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's military said, as tensions run high ahead of Pyongyang's end-of-month deadline to activate propaganda loudspeakers along the heavily armed border.
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