Former UN human rights commissioner Navanethem “Navi” Pillay has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced.

The 85-year-old said her first reaction to hearing the news was to think it must be a joke. “Being a lawyer and a judge, I still want to verify this,” she said.

Originally from Durban, South Africa, Pillay has spent decades working in international law and human rights. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, she presided over the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which investigated and prosecuted those responsible for the 1994 genocide.

More recently, she served on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021.