Nobel Peace Prize awarded to South African jurist Navi Pillay for promoting international law

The Nobel Peace Prize was on Friday awarded to South African jurist Navi Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

Pillay, 85, was born into an Indian-origin Tamil family under apartheid in Durban. She has been “confronting deep structural discrimination, segregation and exclusion”, said the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Her commitment to universal legal principles and her “firm moral compass” are constants in a long career, the 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,” it added.

Pillay has “significantly enlarged the scope and impact” of international law, the panel said.

She has served as a judge on the High Court in South Africa, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court.

Pillay was also the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. She is currently a judge on the International Court of Justice in the case where Myanmar stands accused of genocide.

In historic international court cases, Pillay showed that legal measures can help prevent acts of war and violence, the committee said. She...

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