Nobel winner Navi Pillay jokes she might ‘share’ it with Trump
As applause rolled on in Oslo, new peace laureate turned to cameras with dig at US president who had campaigned for prize
OSLO (MNTV) — Navi Pillay had barely been named the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize laureate before she took a light jab at the man who most wanted it: US President Donald Trump.
As applause continued at the ceremony in Oslo on Friday, the South African jurist paused, turned toward the cameras and quipped: “If you clap a little bit more, I might share this prize with Trump.”
The moment, captured in a video shared on X by Amnesty International’s secretary-general, quickly spread online.
The remark needed little explanation.
Trump has openly campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize for years, repeatedly insisting he deserves it — even as his administration wages war on Iran — and the White House had signalled its displeasure in the run-up to the announcement. He was not chosen.
The committee instead honoured Pillay, 85, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “for her efforts to promote peace and international law,” saying she had been “instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted.”
Pillay most recently chaired the UN commission of inquiry that in 2025 concluded Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.
She sits as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice in The Gambia’s genocide case against Myanmar.
The contrast between laureate and would-be laureate was not lost on commentators: a jurist who has spent decades pressing for accountability through the courts, honoured in the same week that a president who has sanctioned International Criminal Court officials and pressed for the award himself went home empty-handed.
Pillay, for her part, has waved away the praise that has come with the prize.
Asked about the courage her Gaza work required, she replied, in remarks at the Nuremberg war-crimes courtroom: “Why would you need courage to speak the truth?”
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