Judge Navanethem Pillay declined to accept the award.

Judge Pillay joined the legal defence against apartheid in South Africa after leaving university as a Bachelor of Laws. Later, in 1967 Pillay extablished her own law firm in the South African province of Natal, where she was born.Pillay returned to eucation in 1981 at Harvard Law School, Harvard University, United States. There she remained until 1988 where Pillay was confered a Doctorate of Juridical Science, having previously earned a Master of Laws degree from the same institution.  

Pillay was apointed as the first non-white female justice to the High Court of South Africa in 1995, and in the same year, Pillay started her international career as a jurist International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda following nomination to the United Nations Security Council by the president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. On the same tribunal Pillay was elected president in 1999 and served until 2003.

Whereafter, Pillay was elected to serve as a judge on the International Criminal Court, she was one of the first judges to sit on the ICC bench. Pillay resigned early from her six-year term to take up her appointment as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Pillay has most recently been the chair of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory during which the inquiry found that Israel had committed acts of genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip. Pillay has served since 2019 as an ad hoc judge for the International Court of Justice's Rohingya genocide case for crimes of genocide.

Throughout her incrediable career, Pillay has been an advocate for freedom of speech, gender equality, women's rights, gay rights, and human rights. Pillay was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2026, having recieved the Sydney Peace Prize the previous year.

MMXXV