Nobel peace laureate Pillay calls U.S. sanctions on ICC ‘unacceptable’

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would ban transactions with what he described as a "rogue court"

Published Oct 10, 2026  •  2 minute read

Nobel Peace Prize winner Navi Pillay called the US sanctions on the ICC 'unacceptable'. Photo by Frank Boxler /AFP

Oslo (AFP) — The winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, judge and former UN rights chief Navi Pillay, on Saturday called sanctions announced bythe US on the International Criminal Court (ICC) “unheard of, unacceptable”.

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“There is so much tension and anxiety over the continued existence of international courts, mainly the International Criminal Court in The Hague,” Pillay said via video link from Nuremberg during an event at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo.

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Pillay also lamented that “there are hundreds of staff who feel they are under threat”.

“Most importantly, sanctions have been announced by one country against the judges, just for the judicial orders they issue. This is unheard of, unacceptable,” the 85-year-old South African lawyer said.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday announced that Pillay, who once sat on the ICC, was this year’s recipient of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.

Both the United States, whose leader Donald Trump has long coveted the award for himself, and ally Israel condemned her being awarded the honour.

Hours after Pillay was named the laureate, the United States announced new sanctions against the ICC, provoking swift condemnation from member states and the United Nations.

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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would ban transactions with what he described as a “rogue court”, escalating a long-running campaign by Trump’s administration against the Hague-based tribunal.

‘History will judge’

The court rejected the US sanctions as an attack on international law and warned in a statement that “history will judge this moment”.

In addition to serving on the ICC, Pillay was the UN human rights high commissioner from 2008 to 2014 and she headed the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which found last year that genocide was occurring in Gaza. The body does not speak on behalf of the UN.

Israel has rejected the COI’s findings, calling them “distorted and false”.

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

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the awarding of the prize to Pillay showed the Nobel committee had “lost its moral compass” by honouring “a bigot”.

Trump, who last month called on ICC member states to quit the court, meanwhile labelled the committee’s choice as “a disgraceful and embarrassing decision”, telling a rally of his supporters in Syracuse, New York he had “never heard of” Pillay.

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