Nobel peace laureate Pillay calls US sanctions on ICC ‘unacceptable’
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South African lawyer Navi Pillay lamented that there are hundreds of staff who feel like they are under threat.
PHOTO: EPA
- Nobel Peace laureate Navi Pillay called US sanctions on the International Criminal Court “unheard of” and “unacceptable”, saying judges and staff now feel under threat.
- The US announced new sanctions on the ICC hours after Pillay won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, and the court said the move attacked international law.
- Israel, Netanyahu and Trump condemned the award and the ICC, while the Nobel committee’s choice drew sharp political backlash.
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OSLO – The winner of 2026’s Nobel Peace Prize, judge and former UN rights chief Navi Pillay, on Oct 10 called sanctions announced by the US on the International Criminal Court (ICC) “unheard of, unacceptable”.
“There is so much tension and anxiety over the continued existence of international courts, mainly the International Criminal Court in The Hague,” she said via video link from Nuremberg during an event at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo.
She also lamented that “there are hundreds of staff who feel they are under threat”.
“Most importantly, sanctions have been announced by one country against the judges, just for the judicial orders they issue. This is unheard of, unacceptable,” the 85-year-old South African lawyer said.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Oct 9 announced that Pillay, who once sat on the ICC, was 2026’s recipient of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.
Both the US, whose leader Donald Trump has long coveted the award for himself, and ally Israel condemned her being awarded the honour.
Hours after she was named the laureate, the US announced new sanctions against the ICC, provoking swift condemnation from member states and the United Nations.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would ban transactions with what he described as a “rogue court”, escalating a long-running campaign by Trump’s administration against the Hague-based tribunal.
‘History will judge’
The court rejected the US sanctions as an attack on international law and warned in a statement that “history will judge this moment”.
In addition to serving on the ICC, Pillay was the UN human rights high commissioner from 2008 to 2014 and she headed the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which found in 2025 that genocide was occurring in Gaza. The body does not speak on behalf of the UN.
Israel has rejected the COI’s findings, calling them “distorted and false”. Its foreign ministry said the award legitimised “anti-Israel hatred”, adding that it thought that Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels must be “applauding from hell”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the awarding of the prize to Pillay showed the Nobel committee had “lost its moral compass” by honouring “a bigot”.
Trump, who in September called on ICC member states to quit the court, labelled the committee’s choice “a disgraceful and embarrassing decision”, telling a rally of his supporters in Syracuse, New York he had “never heard of” Pillay. AFP