Message of peace: On the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize

Unlike the scientific Nobel Prizes awarded in Sweden, the Nobel Peace Prize is chosen by a five-member committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament (Storting). In recent decades, the committee faced criticism for controversial selections, including sitting political leaders whose administrations pursued military action or controversial policies shortly before or after winning.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was established by the UN Security Council in 1994 to prosecute perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In 2021, the UN Human Rights Council created the Independent International Commission of Inquiry to investigate violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.

Apartheid was an institutional system of racial segregation and discrimination enforced in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. Robben Island was an isolated maximum-security prison near Cape Town where political opponents of the regime, notably Nelson Mandela, were held for decades in harsh conditions.

In September 1998, Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which included Judge Navi Pillay, delivered the verdict in Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu. It became the first international court judgment to define and convict an individual of genocide, ruling that sexual violence and rape constituted acts of genocide when committed with the intent to destroy a protected group.

In September 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, chaired by Navi Pillay, issued findings concluding that Israeli operations in Gaza met the legal definition of acts of genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention. The report specifically cited statements from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as evidence of direct and public incitement.

Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 shortly after taking office, but in 2011 his administration authorized US participation in the NATO military intervention in Libya. In 2025, Venezuelan opposition politician Maria Corina Machado won the prize, despite having supported stringent US economic sanctions against Venezuela and US naval operations in the Caribbean basin.

The rules-based international order refers to the framework of international law, multilateral institutions, and diplomatic norms established after World War II, primarily anchored in the United Nations Charter. It is founded on the sovereign equality of nations, the prohibition of unprovoked territorial aggression, and the peaceful settlement of international disputes.

Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter strictly prohibits member states from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, is widely regarded by legal scholars and the UN General Assembly as a direct violation of these foundational tenets.

Following the escalation in October 2023, Israeli military campaigns expanded beyond the Gaza Strip to include regular airstrikes and ground operations against targets in Lebanon and Syria. United Nations agencies and humanitarian observers have repeatedly expressed concern over civilian casualties, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and the lack of enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law.

On February 28, 2026, direct military strikes were launched by the United States against strategic and leadership installations in Iran, causing the death of its Supreme Leader. Unilateral military actions and targeted assassinations of foreign heads of state without UN Security Council authorization or an immediate self-defense basis under Article 51 of the UN Charter have raised grave questions among international legal bodies.

The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Trump administration previously issued executive orders authorizing asset freezes and travel restrictions against ICC judges and prosecutors investigating alleged crimes involving US nationals or strategic allies like Israel.

In his 1651 political treatise ‘Leviathan’, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes described the natural condition of humanity without sovereign governance as a war of all against all, where life is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. In modern international relations, a ‘Hobbesian’ environment describes an anarchic world where military might dictates outcomes unless restrained by binding international laws and treaties.