Nobel Peace Prize laureate Navi Pillay makes pointed joke: “If you clap a little more, I might have to share the prize with Trump”

[The Financial News] This year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 85-year-old South African-born Navanethem Navi Pillay, an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), made witty remarks upon receiving the news, taking aim at U.S. President Donald Trump.
According to foreign media outlets including the BBC and CBS News, Pillay heard the news that she had won the Nobel Peace Prize from colleagues on the 9th (local time), while attending the Nuremberg Forum in Germany, an international law conference. In a video posted on social media platform X by Amnesty International (AI) Secretary-General Agnès Callamard, Pillay, surrounded by well-wishers, smiled and began by saying, “When I first heard the news, I thought it was a joke.”
She joked to the cheering audience, “If you clap just a little more, I might have to share this prize with President Trump.” The remark was seen as a jab at Trump’s open desire to win the prize; he has repeatedly claimed that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for resolving conflicts around the world. The joke was all the more pointed given that earlier this year, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, gave Trump her medal as a gesture of gratitude for the ousting of the Maduro regime.
Pillay added, “I wouldn’t want to receive the prize if the public didn’t agree that I deserved it, so I’m sincerely grateful for your applause,” and, “It is very meaningful to hear the news among colleagues who support human rights.”
Pillay, who recently submitted a report as chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (COI) describing the situation in Gaza as “genocide,” also spoke candidly about her convictions. “The main response to that report was praise for my courage, and I was surprised that it should take courage to tell the truth,” she said. “All you have to do is interpret the law, examine all the facts and make a fair judgment.”
Pillay, who turned 85 last month, is currently serving as an ad hoc judge at the ICJ in the case brought by Gambia against Myanmar. “I’m asked when I’m going to stop, but I can’t stop helping wonderful people like the ones I meet at this event,” she said, expressing her passion.
The Nobel Committee said that it awarded Pillay the prize because she had defended former President Nelson Mandela and others against the apartheid policies of the South African government, and had played a key role, despite political pressure, in developing an international justice system that holds people accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
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