- Navi Pillay, the former United Nations human rights chief from Durban, won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on 9 October.
- In 2016, her panel on KwaZulu-Natal’s xenophobic attacks found no verified link to King Zwelithini’s speech but warned of recurrence.
Navi Pillay, the Durban-born judge who led a KwaZulu-Natal inquiry into attacks on foreign nationals, has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the award on Friday, 9 October. She will receive it on 10 December.
The committee honoured Pillay, 85, for her efforts to promote peace and international law. She is a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and a former judge of the International Criminal Court.
In April 2015, after attacks on foreign nationals in KwaZulu-Natal, Premier Senzo Mchunu appointed Pillay to chair a seven-member panel. At least seven people died, hundreds were injured and thousands had to leave their homes.
The panel also looked at a speech by the late King Goodwill Zwelithini in Pongola in March 2015. He was reported to have told foreigners to pack their bags.
His office said he was mistranslated and quoted out of context. The King declined to be interviewed, saying the Human Rights Commission was already investigating.
The panel’s report, released in April 2016, found no verified link between the speech and the violence. Pillay said no one came forward to say they heard the King and then attacked foreigners. The panel still condemned inflammatory remarks by the King, then President Jacob Zuma and other leaders, and warned that violence could return.
Earlier this year, anti-immigration protests in several provinces, including KwaZulu-Natal, ended with foreign nationals being taken back to their home countries.
United States President Donald Trump reacted on Friday. At a rally in Syracuse, New York, he called Pillay “a mystery person” and wrote that the United States should have received the prize. When she heard the news, Pillay joked that she “may share this prize with Trump.”
