Navi Pillay awarded Peace Prize: 'Lifetime spent fighting for what's right & to uphold human rights'

Home south africa To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: © France 24 09:27 Issued on: 09/10/2026 - 19:27Modified: 09/10/2026 - 19:29 Haxie Meyers-Belkin is pleased to welcome Rosa Freedman, Professor of Law Conflict and Global Development at the University of Reading. Navi Pillay's career represents a remarkable contribution to international law and human rights, from her pioneering role in post-apartheid South Africa to her work at the United Nations. Yet her legacy also raises difficult questions about political impartiality, particularly in relation to Israel and Gaza. She believes we need to distinguish between the significance of her lifelong achievements and the controversy surrounding the decision to award her the Nobel Peace Prize at this particular moment. More broadly, this debate invites us to examine whether the prize is recognising individual merit or increasingly serving as a vehicle for political messaging. At a time when international law and mul...