Navi Pillay

Navanetham Pillay (née Naidoo, 23 September 1941) is a South African jurist who served as the high commissioner for human rights of the United Nations from 2008 to 2014. A South African of Tamil origin, Pillay was the first non-white female judge of the High Court of South Africa. She has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She is to be awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

Pillay was born and raised in Durban, where she later attended the University of Natal, receiving her Bachelor of Arts in 1963 and her Bachelor of Laws in 1965. After university, Pillay pursued a career as an attorney, joining the legal defence against apartheid. In 1967, Pillay started her own law firm and became the first woman to do so in her home province of Natal. In 1981, Pillay attended Harvard University and earned her Master of Law. In 1988, she completed her thesis and graduated from Harvard Law School with a Doctorate of Juridical Science.

Pillay was nominated and confirmed to the High Court of South Africa by the Judicial Service Commission under supervision of the bar association in 1995. In 1995, President Nelson Mandela and Justice Minister Dullah Omar nominated Pillay to the UN Security Council for a judgeship on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Between 1999 and 2003, Pillay served on the ICTR, and was elected President Judge. In 2003, the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) elected her as a judge in the ICC, where she served as member of the Appeals Chamber until 2008. In 2008, with the approval of the United Nations General Assembly, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Pillay the UN high commissioner for human rights.

She was also the chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Pillay has been serving as an ad hoc judge on the International Court of Justice's Rohingya genocide case (The Gambia v. Myanmar) for crimes of genocide since 2019.