South African judge Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, 85, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday "for her efforts to promote peace and international law", the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

Pillay ​held states and national leaders accountable and brought hope to ​victims of violence and conflict, and demonstrated a firm moral ⁠compass in her 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," the committee said.

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Navi Pillay was chair of ​the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory ​that concluded last year that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Israel dismissed the ‌report ⁠as "scandalous".

The peace prize is the fifth Nobel awarded this week, after literature, chemistry, physics and medicine. Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won in 2025.

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The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 12 million Swedish crowns, or about $1.2 million, is due to be ​presented in Oslo ​on December ⁠10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards, in his 1895 will.