Nobel Peace Prize 2026 goes to Navi Pillay

• The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize goes to South African jurist and human rights pioneer Navi Pillay “for her efforts to promote peace and international law.”

• US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed he deserves the peace prize , saying this week that it “would be a great discredit” to the Nobel committee if it does not select him for the honor.

• Nobel Prizes in medicine , physics , chemistry and literature were also annnounced this week.

The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Navi Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

We’re about to find out the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. The committee have entered the room and will shortly begin their announcement.

The peace prize takes on a different significance in a time when there is so much instability.

Destructive wars continued around the globe last year. Russia’s war in Ukraine shows no signs of ending soon, more than a thousand Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza even after a fragile ceasefire came into effect last November, civil war in Sudan is still raging, and war in Iran has further destabilized the Middle East.

The peace prize “highlights the urgency of certain causes and certain challenges,” said Karim Haggag, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

As well as these wars, global military spending rose by almost 3% last year, fueled mostly by ballooning defense budgets in Europe and Asia, SIPRI found in their annual report.

The ICC and ICJ are two institutions that experts have highlighted as potential recipients of the award this year.

The Nobel committee can send different messages depending on who they choose to award. If human rights activists or journalists are recognized, the message could be one of “setting an example of moral courage in the face of very strong political or authoritarian pressure,” Haggag added.

If there is no “suitable” candidate for the peace prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee can choose not to award it.

The process for selecting Nobel peace laureates closely follows the will of Alfred Nobel , the Swedish chemist who gave his fortune to establish the prizes. His will says the award will be given to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”

The Nobel Foundation’s bylaws say that “if none of the works under consideration is found to be of the importance indicated in the first paragraph, the prize money shall be reserved until the following year.”

In the past, the committee has chosen to abstain 19 times – most notably during the first and second world wars – but the peace prize has been awarded every year since 1971.

Some observers have argued that withholding the prize could send a strong message that the world must step up its peacebuilding efforts. But scholars of conflict and disarmament have previously told CNN that withholding the prize could send a message of resignation and hopelessness.

Another potential laureate featured on the list released by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) is the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a US-based watchdog organization that promotes press freedom by defending the right of media workers to report safely and without fear of reprisal. It also advocates for the release of detained and imprisoned journalists.

CPJ also tracks the killing, detention and targeting of journalists worldwide. The organization said there were a record-high number of journalists killed in 2024 and 2025.

As of December 2025, CPJ researchers have documented 335 journalists worldwide who are imprisoned and 85 who are missing. The watchdog also found that 130 journalists and media workers were killed last year.

“Beyond active warzones, journalists face lethal risks from organized crime and systematic repression,” the PRIO said in a statement. “From targeted killings in armed conflicts and by criminal networks, to the relentless harassment and suppression of independent media in countries such as Russia, Mexico, Myanmar and Afghanistan, reporting truth has increasingly become a matter of life and death.”

More than three years after it broke out, Sudan’s deadly civil war is still raging, fueling one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises .

More than 150,000 people have been killed , 14 million more displaced and 33.7 million people – more than two-thirds of Sudan’s population – require urgent humanitarian assistance, the Red Cross reported in July.

But international aid organizations have struggled to reach those in need. In their absence, the community-led Emergency Response Rooms have stepped in, providing food, clean water, medication, community kitchens, health clinics and trauma counseling.

The network of community-led initiatives is listed as a possible laureate by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), which publishes a list of five worthy potential winners each year.

“In light of Ukraine and Iran and all of these big geopolitical wars, the Sudan war can end up a little on the back bench, but it is a war that entangles in it a lot of the dynamics in the Middle East with the rising conflict over the Red Sea,” says Haakon Gjerløw, acting director of the PRIO.

Alsanosi Adam, a volunteer and one of the Emergency Response Rooms’ spokespeople, told the Guardian last year: “You risk anything from intimidation to death. From torture to being killed – and everything in between.”

The network emerged from the Sudanese tradition of “Nafeer,” meaning a “collective call to action,” and first developed during earlier upheaval in 2018 and the Covid-19 pandemic, according to aid group Save the Children.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) are the two main courts of global law, and frequently appear on the shortlist of potential Nobel Peace Prize winners listed by the Peace Research Institute Oslo.

They have received unprecedented international attention for their efforts to prosecute alleged war crimes committed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza.

The ICJ, which prosecutes states, has ordered Israel to “take all measures” to prevent genocide in Gaza after South Africa accused Israel of violating international laws on genocide in its war in the territory.

The ICC, which prosecutes individuals, issued an arrest warrant in March 2023 for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another Russian official for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children. It issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, in 2024.

But picking the ICC could invoke the wrath of the Trump administration, which targeted several ICC prosecutors with sanctions after it issued the warrants for Israeli officials, as part of its campaign to “dismantle” the court — an effort condemned by Europe and Japan. Neither the US nor Israel are party to the ICC.

“We do feel pressure but as I’ve said the dedication of our staff is extraordinary and they continue to do their work.”

For the last 26 years, the International Space Station (ISS) has been continuously occupied by humans orbiting the Earth, becoming an increasingly rare example of international cooperation.

“Giving the prize to the ISS would be one way of celebrating what we can achieve as humanity when we are able to cooperate,” said Haakon Gjerløw, acting director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, which compiles a widely respected shortlist of potential Nobel Peace Prize nominees.

Cooperation on the ISS is enabled through the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which also prohibited countries from placing nuclear weapons or installing military bases in outer space, Gjerløw points out.

But that treaty does not prohibit the use of conventional weapons in space, and the US military recently confirmed it had deployed weapons in orbit.

So, highlighting the ISS “could also give an impetus for politicians internationally to improve on the Outer Space Treaty,” or establish a new space station that also includes China when the current one is decommissioned in 2030, Gjerløw told CNN.

Jointly run by NASA and its equivalent agencies in Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe, the ISS represents “the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken,” according to NASA’s website.

Research there has advanced our understanding in many areas of science, including drug development, quantum mechanics and black holes.

Predicting the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is notoriously difficult, with the nominees only made public 50 years after it’s awarded. But every year, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) compiles a widely respected shortlist of potential candidates.

The humanitarian organization Save the Children and Mykola Kuleba, who founded Save Ukraine to advocate for children affected by war in the eastern European country, are on the PRIO’s director’s list this year.

Save the Children works in conflict zones – notably in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar and the DRC – to provide humanitarian support and help children continue their education.

Save Ukraine , meanwhile, works to rescue abducted children in Russia and Russian-occupied territories.

“We don’t work with the Russian authorities or any officials in occupied territories, because it’s really dangerous.

In 2024, about 19% of the world’s children lived in a conflict zone, double the proportion from 30 years ago, according to figures from the UN children’s agency (UNICEF).

CNN’s Ivana Kottasová contributed reporting.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year after being forced into hiding following a disputed 2024 election in her country.

Machado won the prize for her “struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the Nobel committee said.

Her recognition came at an extremely volatile time for Venezuela as the Trump administration intensified its pressure campaign against the country, which culminated in US special forces raiding the capital Caracas and capturing then-President Nicolás Maduro in January.

Machado sought to use the Nobel prize, which US President Donald Trump has publicly coveted, to ally herself with him. She dedicated her award to him in October last year, telling CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that it was “absolutely fair, and that’s what the Venezuelan people feel.”

After US forces toppled Maduro, Machado even traveled to the White House and presented Trump with her medal. The Nobel committee has said the award is not transferable.

However, Machado has been largely sidelined from any role in a post-Maduro government. The Trump administration has instead dealt with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who previously served as Maduro’s oil minister and vice president . And Machado has been unable to re-enter Venezuela after traveling to Norway in December to collect her medal.

Deciding who will be the recipient of a Nobel Prize is a secretive process. This year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has selected its peace prize laureates from a pool of nominees, comprising 208 individuals and 79 organizations.

The nominations process starts in September each year. Academics, Nobel laureates and lawmakers from around the world had until January 31 to submit nominations.

The five-member committee then whittles that down to a closely guarded shortlist of 20 to 30 candidates.

During the evaluation process, the committee may add further names to the list. Information on the nominees and nominators is not disclosed for 50 years.

The committee members, who are appointed by the Norwegian parliament, also consults their advisers, normally Norwegian professors with expertise in related areas .

The committee only reaches a decision in its last meeting right before the announcement of the award, typically aiming for a unanimous vote.

The committee will “always revert to the will of Alfred Nobel,” which contains the three criteria of “promoting peace, disarmament and international cooperation,” according to Haakon Gjerløw, acting director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).

“There are different topics… but it always needs to connect them back to the testament of Nobel,” he said.

US President Donald Trump has expressed his desire to win a Nobel Peace Prize at almost every opportunity — including in the Oval Office this week.

Trump said not awarding him the prize “would be a great discredit” to the selecting committee. The president again said he’d “settled eight wars” while in office, a claim CNN’s Fact Check team describes as an exaggeration.

But experts say it is unlikely he will win. “It’s very difficult to see how the ideals of the Nobel Peace Prize committee would align with the actual policies and positions adopted by the president,” said Karim Haggag, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Nominations for the award closed on January 31, meaning the prize often relates to the previous year. In 2025, a Trump administration-brokered ceasefire came into force in Gaza, though it remains fragile and Israeli strikes have killed over 1,000 Palestinians since. Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have attempted to negotiate a peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine but have not yet reached any breakthroughs.

Last year too, Trump threatened to seize Greenland and US forces raided a complex in Venezuela to capture then-president Nicolas Maduro .

The committee still considers events after January 31 as part of the evaluation of nominees, during which time the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran, killing thousands in Iran and Lebanon, and sparking months of instability in the Middle East.

The Nobel Prizes were established in the last will and testament of Swedish industrialist and chemist Alfred Nobel, best known for his invention of dynamite.

Prizes are bestowed on individuals for their incredible accomplishments in five categories – physiology or medicine, chemistry, physics, literature and peace – a reflection of Nobel’s interests.

Nobel stipulated in his will that his fortune was to be used to honor “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

Additionally, in 1968, Sweden’s central bank created a new prize – the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Welcome to our live coverage of the announcement of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee have sifted through 287 nominations for this year’s prize and we’ll soon learn the winner.

The laureate will be announced at the Norwegian Nobel Institute at 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. ET).

The award ceremony will take place in Oslo, Norway on December 10 — the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist, engineer and industrialist who created the prize.