“The last thing I did was the delivery of the report on Gaza, naming what’s happening there as genocide. Yeah, so one of the main reactions to that report is paying tribute to me for my courage. And you can imagine how surprised I was.”

“Why would you need courage to speak the truth? You interpret the law, you look at all the facts — so it’s an impartial decision-making.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the former UN human rights chief the prize “for her efforts to promote peace and international law”.

Pillay said her first reaction to hearing the news was disbelief.

“Someone called me out now to tell me, and I said, ‘It must be a joke’. You don’t want to receive an award, prize or anything unless the public agrees that you deserve this.”

Her selection recognises a career spanning the defence of opponents of apartheid in South Africa, international criminal trials and leadership of the UN’s human rights office.

Gaza findings

Pillay chaired the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

Its September 2025 report concluded that Israeli authorities had committed four of the five acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group. The findings included killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, imposing destructive conditions of life and preventing births.

Israel dismissed the report as “scandalous”. The commission’s investigative findings are distinct from a court judgment. South Africa separately brought a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention.

International law under pressure

The Nobel Committee placed Pillay’s work against a broader challenge to international legal institutions.

“The system of international law is under tremendous pressure, and its institutions are under attack,” it said.

“We see a shift towards power politics at the expense of legal frameworks and global respect for law and justice. Whenever might overtakes right, it undermines stability, trust and peaceful co-existence.”

The award comes amid US sanctions against International Criminal Court officials and President Donald Trump’s calls for countries to withdraw from the institution.

Haakon Gjerloew, acting director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said the decision should be understood primarily as support for international law.

“I think it’s generally rather a promotion of an international legal world order,” he said.

A career in accountability

Born in Durban to a family of Indian Tamil origin, Pillay established a law practice in Natal in 1967. She later became the first non-white woman appointed to South Africa’s High Court and served at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court.

At the Rwanda tribunal, she was one of three judges who convicted Jean-Paul Akayesu in 1998. The landmark judgment established that rape could constitute genocide when committed with the intent to destroy a protected group.

The Nobel Prize, worth 12 million Swedish crowns, approximately US$1.2 million, will be presented in Oslo on December 10.

Following the Akayesu ruling, Pillay said the tribunal wanted to “send out a strong message that rape is no longer a trophy of war”.