Some say that the Nobel Peace Prize lost credibility when it was won by Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho in 1973, given neither men were great at anything beyond blood thirsty realpolitik.
Anjeze Bojaxhui (known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta) in 1979 was another one, given the succour she gave to the likes of the Duvaliers.
In 1992, Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala was chosen, although there are considerable doubts about parts of her claimed biography.
In 2007 selecting Al Gore for promoting climate change was quite the stretch, only beaten by Barack Obama winning the prize in 2009 despite having done next to nothing (and later being President when Russia invaded Crimea, and Syria's government starting barrel bombing and using chemical weapons, and doing next to nothing about either).
The European Union winning the prize in 2012 meant the Nobel committee was entering the abstract (bearing in mind how it did nothing to stop the genocide in the Balkans), followed by the UN World Food Programme in 2020 - although its responsibility for increasing world food supply is not significant.
Liu Xiaobo, Chinese dissident won the prize in 2010, deservedly so. Note that for a moment.
For 2026, selecting Navi Pillay, South African lawyer, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and judge for the International Criminal Court, falls into the bracket of being disgraceful.
The only thing more disgraceful is the hagiographical coverage of her in some much media, and the list of usual suspects willing to whitewash her mixed record.
She isn't without some merit, seen in her earlier career. Albeit that the ending of apartheid in South Africa saw the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize given to Mandela and De Klerk. Her role in ending apartheid is but a footnote compared to them.
However, the Wall Street Journal editorial commenting on her winning the prize is telling, and the background as to why speaks volumes as to how unsuited this appeaser of tyrannies is for the prize:
Of course you wouldn't know that if you relied on New Zealand's state media for the news. RNZ reported it without controversy (except for repeating a CNN report of Trump saying he should have won it, which is absord). TVNZ was almost the same, except noting Israeli PM Netanyahu's criticism of it. without elaborating.
Hamas celebrated her winning the prize, which for some should be enough to condemn her. Surely she said something in her history to condemn a fanatical theocratic terrorist group that engaged in a sadistic slaughter of innocent civilians? Well, no.
A short version of her record is here:
On the People's Republic of China, she is in obeisance. Remember Liu Xiaobo who won the prize in 2010? Pillay didn't attend the ceremony for him being granted the prize. Xiaobo had four terms in prison for criticising the regime in Beijing, and died from cancer after being granted "medical parole". This is one of Xiaobo's brave publications pushing for liberal democracy in China. Pillay ignored it, presumably she thinks Chinese people aren't capable of being allowed to decide for themselves who their government should be.
Ignoring China is one thing, but turning in names of dissidents to the most murderous regime in history is quite another. Campaigners for the rights of China's Uyghur minority have long faced threats, violence and imprisonment. Dolkun Isa is a Uyghur activist who lives in Germany, and he claims Pillay shared personal information about activists with the Beijing regime, without their consent, putting them at risk.
In fact it caused a human rights lawyer, Emma Reilly, who worked for her to resign because of how outraged she was at this behaviour.
Even Ken Roth, former Executive Director of Human Rights watch says she kowtowed to China.
Of course when it came to the Charlie Hebdo murders and the violence against Danish publishers for the cartoons of Mohammed, she basically said the victims had it coming for insulting Islam. She called for censorship against insulting a religion.
She said Charlie Hebdo was "irresponsible", and of course by implication inferred that any Muslims who threatened or applied violence against anyone upsetting them because of depiction of their religion, were not to blame, but were provoked.
When Russia invading Ukraine the first time, in 2014, she didn't want to call out Russian aggression, but talked about restraint on "both sides".
Pillay, like so much of the self-styled "human rights" establishment gives a free pass to Cuba's long standing one-party state, which has zero tolerance for political dissent or freedom of the press. If you can't be critical of any government that outlaws expressions of opposition to the ruling party, then you're no champion of human rights.
I didn't mention Israel because, of course, she claims there is a "genocide", doesn't say Hamas committed a genocidal attack, and if you think her language has done anything to encourage peace in that conflict, I can sell you a bridge.
There's no shortage of international affairs experts who regard her as odious with views incompatible with a liberal free society.
Of course former PM Helen Clark applauds her, presumably because Pillay is part of the international order of moral relativists with whom Clark spent her UN career working with. Her treatment of dissidents in China is blanked out.
Not sure that "work on the death penalty" has paid off much for opponents of Hamas, China, Cuba or Russia.
I'll leave the last word to Richard Haas, former US diplomat and for nearly 20 years President of the US Council on Foreign Relations.
Hopefully there is a mass boycott of her being granted the prize.
She is so unworthy, and it is embarrassing and a disgrace for anyone to support her, or to whitewash her record. It is particularly disgraceful that so much of the media has just accepted the prize without question or comment as to the controversy over it. Media who could never operate in the countries she kowtows to.
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