Trump swipes at Nobel committee after peace prize awarded to human rights lawyer

 

Trump swipes at Nobel committee after peace prize awarded to human rights lawyer

 

The president has repeatedly expressed his desire for the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

By Casey He

10/09/2026 7:17 PM GMT+2

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/09/trump-nobel-committee-2026-navi-pillay-01114445

 

President Donald Trump took a jab at the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday after it awarded this year’s peace prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, a South African human rights lawyer and judge who led a United Nations commission that stated Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

 

The president reposted a post on Truth Social blasting the Nobel committee and Pillay while praising Trump’s foreign policy record.

 

“Today the Nobel Committee shamed itself beyond repair and demeaned the once great Nobel Peace Prize by giving it to the UN’s Navi Pillay,” said the post from the law firm of attorney David Schoen, who represented Trump in his second impeachment trial in 2021.

 

Trump has long argued that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for what he says are his efforts to settle conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was awarded the prize last year, gave Trump her medal in January after a U.S. operation captured then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

 

The Nobel committee’s decision to award Pillay the esteemed prize was also criticized by the Israeli government, which has denounced the report from Pillay’s commission.

 

“The Nobel Prize committee has lost its moral compass,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in a statement on social media.

 

The committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump and Netanyahu’s criticism.

 

Pillay also served as a judge on the International Criminal Court, another frequent target of Trump and his administration. Just hours after the Nobel announcement, the Trump administration announced it was imposing sweeping sanctions on the ICC itself.

 

“This is an important recognition of the vital role that international justice plays as a cornerstone of lasting peace,” ICC President Tomoko Akane said in a statement to POLITICO. “At a time of profound challenges to the international legal order and the rule of law, this recognition carries particular significance.”

 

The Nobel committee, in announcing the peace prize, also appeared to implicitly rebuke the Trump administration and other world governments that have sanctioned international judges and “attacked” institutions of international law.

 

“In awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wants to remind the world that the rule of law — national and international — underpins the system we have set up to ensure peace and resolve conflicts non-violently,” the committee’s announcement said. “Peace requires justice.”

 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.