South African President Nobel Peace laureate to Navi Pillay

O President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, today welcomed the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to South African jurist Navi Pillay and highlighted his “briefness, integrity and commitment of a lifetime to justice”.

“The award of the Nobel Prize to Judge Pillay allows us to celebrate its contributions to the strengthening of peace, the defense of human dignity and the hope it has brought to South Africa and the peoples of the world,” Ramaphosa said in a statement.

“She [Navi Pillay] served humanity guided by its principles and by the conviction that the world can and must be a better place,” she added.

Ramaphosa stressed that the jurist thus joins other South Africans awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, such as Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk.

“ We are proud that Judge Pillay joins these figures and highlights the important contribution of South Africans to the peace, justice and progress of humanity,” said the head of state.

“ The recognition he received reminds us that we must build a society in which all people, regardless of their circumstances, can develop their capabilities and contribute fully to our country and the world”, he concluded.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee today awarded Pillay the prize “for its work for peace and international law” and highlighted its role in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are the subject of legal action.

Born in Durban, 1941, during apartheid, within an Indian Tamil family, Pillay was a law pioneer in South Africa and defended political prisoners and activists against this segregationist regime, including Nelson Mandela, the first black president of the country.

He subsequently served as a judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (IPRC), which he served as the chairman, and as a magistrate of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Between 2008 and 2014, he was High Commissioner of the United Nations for Human Rights and subsequently chaired the UN International Independent Research Commission on the Occupied Palestinian Territories by 2025.