South African-born anti-apartheid activist and international human rights jurist Navi Pillay is the winner.
Of note - one of the most recent highlights in her very excellent CV was being chair of the UN Palestine Commission in 2025, when it determined Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Given that she’s been active at the top levels of IHL for decades and dealt with lots of other high-profile cases, I can’t help but feel that it’s that specific highlight that’s responsible for the timing of the prize this year, even if the Committee didn’t call it out in their announcement..
Man, Trump tried so hard for it, too. How many disastrous wars must he start, how many citizens must he shoot, how many immigrants must he abuse, how many executions must he livestream before he wins the Peace prize?
Which I’m sure must be already raising some hackles. Surely the Academy will emphasize it’s about the whole of her work but this will be brought up both pro and con.
(OP and Mods may want to have a note on the thread title to help keep this one on-topic re: the actual awardee?)
Ignore the Netanyahu administration; it’s three weeks before the election, and they’re in panic mode. They’ll say anything to get a headline.
That said, I couldn’t find any notable Israelis, left or right, who support the choice of winner. Here’s a column from respected centrist columnist Ben-Dror Yemini, a staunch critic of Netanyahu:
No one can claim that Nobel Prizes are awarded with the goal of being neutral, anodyne, and inoffensive or even that the awards are always just. Now, in this specific case, maybe that columnist is correct that there was an intentional “fuck you” aimed at Israel: on the international level, a lot of countries do think that Israel is in the wrong.
Before that, there is the nomination, selection, and decision making process:
where at the end:
Eventually, sometime between mid-August and late September, the Committee makes its decision. Consensus is common, but it a simple majority vote is sufficient. The decision is final and without appeal. The name(s) of that year’s Nobel Peace Prize Laureate(s) is then announced.
It seems this year they took a little langer than “late September”. No idea whether the decision was unanimous nor when, if ever, this detail is revealed.
And note that there’s a huge list of qualified nominators for the Peace Prize, including all college professors in a wide variety of fields, and most national-level governmental officials from any nation. So pretty much everyone imaginable is going to get nominated, including Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, the Ayatollah, Xi, etc.
Is it fair for the recipients or runners-up to give credit or blame to the Norwegian government or is the panel free of undue influence from the government?
If you’re the kind of guy to say about another nation (Iran in this case), “Either they give us everything or they don’t exist any longer,” you don’t deserve a Peace Prize.
Just read this post from Peter Girnus, who is a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that selected this year’s winner. He has quite a bit to say about the process and the history. It’s well worth the read. Sorry it’s on Xitter: