Navi Pillay — South Africa's global rights activist and Nobel winner

Former UN rights chief Navanethem “Navi” Pillay — awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday — is a global rights defender who has also served on the International Criminal Court and was South Africa’s first non-white woman high court judge. The 85-year-old built a formidable reputation during a decades-long career that took her from South African courts to the ICC and the International Tribunal for Rwanda. She gained global prominence for her outspoken condemnation of government repression of popular protests in the Arab world, including Libya and Syria. Between 2021 and 2025, she chaired a…