Navi Pillay, a former judge at the International Criminal Court, joked about President Donald Trump on Friday after learning she had won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Trump responded by attacking the award, and the U.S. announced sanctions on the court.
Pillay was told of the prize in Nuremberg, where supporters had gathered. “If you clap a little more, I might share this prize with Trump,” she told them, drawing laughter in video shared on social media.
Trump has openly coveted the prize. Last year’s winner, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, presented her medal to him in Washington. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said at the time that the gesture did not transfer the prize itself. “The prize itself, that is, the honor and recognition, cannot be separated from the laureate chosen by the committee,” it said.
The committee cited Pillay’s “commitment to universal legal principles” and her “firm moral compass.” It said she showed through landmark international trials that legal action can help prevent war and violence, and that her independence, expertise and persistence made her one of the world’s most respected international jurists.
Pillay also served as the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. In South Africa, she was the first non-white woman to open her own law practice. She recently led a U.N. commission of inquiry that concluded Israel committed genocide in Gaza, a finding that provoked strong opposition from the Israeli government.
Asked about praise for her “courage” in reaching that conclusion, Pillay said, “Why does it take courage to tell the truth?” She said she was interpreting the law and examining all the facts, which made it “simply a fair judgment.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres congratulated her on social media, calling the award “a tribute to all those who work to defend international law, the rule of law and human rights, and to secure peace, justice and human dignity.”
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, said he knew nothing about Pillay and that no one else did either. “As far as I know, no one has heard of her, other than that she hates Israel,” he wrote.
He listed eight wars he claims to have resolved: Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Israel and Hamas. He said he should have received “eight Nobel Peace Prizes, not one.” He also cited preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the return of Israeli hostages, the removal of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and NATO members’ pledge to raise defense spending from 2% to 5% of gross domestic product.
Trump quoted Machado as telling him last year that he had solved many wars and deserved the prize more than anyone who had received it. “I agree,” he wrote. He described Pillay as a “liberal person who works for the U.N.” and said he never spoke with the United Nations during any of the conflicts he claims to have resolved. “It was not helpful,” he wrote.
Trump called the choice “an indelible stain on Norway that will never be forgotten.” He said the “Peace” prize had been permanently discredited by “a bunch of radical ideologues” he described as “anti-democratic” and “enemies of civilization.”
Separately Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions on the ICC under Executive Order 14203. “President Trump will never allow the ICC to prosecute Americans,” Rubio said, adding that the U.S. would cut off the court’s funding and cripple its operations by prohibiting dealings with what he called a “rogue court.”
Rubio said Republican and Democratic administrations alike have for decades rejected the idea that the ICC can prosecute U.S. citizens, troops and political leaders. “The United States has never joined the ICC, and we neither need nor want it,” he said.
He said Washington had held off on the designations out of respect for allies and hope for a diplomatic solution, but that neither the court nor its member states had taken meaningful steps to address U.S. concerns. Rubio said the measures were designed to give member states an opportunity to negotiate a solution, and that the U.S. would “continue to adjust” its actions if those efforts failed.
“Either the ICC stops its threats, or we will end the ICC,” Rubio said, calling on allies that are members of the court to rein it in.
