Statement on the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize and U.S. Sanctions Against the International Criminal Court
On Friday, October 9, the world saw two starkly different visions.
One vision saw the Nobel Peace Prize, one of the most prestigious awards on earth, go to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay for her tireless work in pursuit of international justice and accountability for atrocity crimes committed around the globe.
Yet, in another vision, the U.S. government issued institutional sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world’s only permanent tribunal for the prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression. Doing so put the ICC on par, for example, with outwardly xenophobic, militant entities such as Al-Qaeda.
Pillay’s career is the clearest answer to which vision deserves to prevail. A lawyer who defended people under apartheid, she went on to preside over the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she sat on the bench that delivered the first genocide conviction by an international court; serve as a judge on the ICC’s Appeals Chamber; lead the UN human rights office; and chair the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a body that documented atrocity crimes committed by both parties. Administrations of both parties in Washington have welcomed the results of international trials in which she sat as a judge.
Sanctioning the ICC as an institution is a betrayal of core democratic values and long-held American principles: an independent judiciary, due process, and the idea, championed by Americans at Nuremberg, that no one is above the law. These sanctions greatly frustrate and complicate the work of atrocity crimes accountability organizations like The Reckoning Project, which are actively fighting in Ukraine and Sudan to ensure justice and accountability for the worst of human behavior.
We urge ICC States Parties to condemn the sanctions, activate blocking measures such as the EU Blocking Statute, and protect the Court and the civil society organizations that support its work. On October 9, the Nobel Committee affirmed the world that law must prevail over might. The Reckoning Project stands with Navi Pillay, with the Court, and with the survivors whose pursuit of justice depends on both.