Oslo (AFP) - The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to South Africa’s Navi Pillay, the judge who headed the Rwanda genocide tribunal and presided over a UN commission which accused Israel of genocide in Gaza – a laureate immediately blasted by Israel.

The 85-year-old has spent her career defending international law, which is under attack from wars and US President Donald Trump.

Currently a judge on the International Court of Justice in a case where Myanmar also stands accused of genocide, Pillay has been “instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are prosecuted,” said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

Israel’s foreign ministry said the award legitimised “anti-Israel hatred”, and that Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels must be “applauding from hell”.

The daughter of a bus driver in a family of Tamil descent, Pillay served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2008–2014).

Her career has taken her from South African courts, where she defended anti-apartheid activists, to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court.

“In historic international court cases, she has shown that legal measures can help prevent acts of war and violence,” the committee said.

Pillay’s “independence, her expertise and steadfastness have made her one of the most respected international jurists of our time.”

She reacted to the news by making a quip about US President Donald Trump’s well-documented desire to win the prize himself.

“If you clap a little bit more I may share this prize with Trump,” the 85-year-old said during a standing ovation captured by Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard in Nuremberg and posted on the social network X.

Pillay headed the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which does not speak on behalf of the world body, and which last year found that genocide was occurring in Gaza.

Pillay told AFP at the time that her team had shared “thousands of pieces of information” with prosecutors at the International Criminal Court.

Israel had categorically rejected the report’s findings, slamming it as “distorted and false”.

- ‘Courage to speak the truth’ -

The Nobel committee said that while its prize honoured Pillay’s career of fighting genocide, it was not taking a stand on whether Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide.

“We are not the court,” Frydnes told AFP.

“It’s her report, the Commission’s report… It will be decided by the International Court of Justice,” he said.

Speaking on Friday after her standing ovation, Pillay noted that many had paid tribute to her courage in that report.

“You can imagine how surprised I was. Why would you need courage to speak the truth?”

The UN said her prize was a “testament to the need and to the value of human rights in this world more than ever”.

The International Criminal Court meanwhile said her award was of “particular significance” given current attacks on international law.

The Nobel committee echoed that sentiment in its statement, noting that “at a time of existential challenges – including more wars and conflicts than the world has seen in a long time – international law is no longer just a supplement to peace and security.”

“It is an absolute necessity.”

- ‘Needs to stop’ -

The prize for Pillay is sure to anger Trump, whose administration has repeatedly attacked international justice institutions.

“This is a clear message to those who are putting pressure on these institutions, to those who are sanctioning the judges and are attacking the institutions. That needs to stop,” Frydnes told AFP after the announcement.

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump has made no secret of his desire to win the prize, insisting that he was the most deserving candidate and claiming to have ended up to eight wars.

But his war against Iran, his territorial expansion ambitions as in Greenland, his hard line on migrants, and his attacks on multilateralism and the media have, according to experts in Oslo, disqualified him for the prize.

The prize comes with a gold medal, a diploma and a prize sum of $1.2 million.

The award will be presented at a formal ceremony in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel.