How One Nobel Prize Connects Gaza, U.S. Sanctions on the ICC, Myanmar, Russia and Rare Earths

Navi Pillay learned that she had won the Nobel Peace Prize while sitting in Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg — the same courtroom where Nazi leaders were prosecuted after World War II and where some of the foundations of modern international criminal law were laid.

The symbolism was difficult to miss.

Pillay has spent much of her career inside the institutions built around that idea: that even governments and political leaders can be held accountable under international law.

Hours later, the United States sanctioned one of those institutions — the International Criminal Court.

And at the same time, Pillay is sitting as a judge in another genocide case, this one involving Myanmar, while Washington is reopening direct talks with Myanmar’s military leadership amid Russian influence and U.S. interest in rare-earth minerals.

These are separate developments.

But together, they tell a much larger story about what happens when international law collides with national power.

First, Navi Pillay

Navi Pillay is an 85-year-old South African jurist whose career has been built around international accountability.

She defended anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, became the first non-white woman appointed to the country’s High Court, served as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, became a judge at the International Criminal Court, and later served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Today, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded her the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her work promoting peace and international law.

Its explanation was particularly timely.

“The system of international law is under tremendous pressure, and its institutions are under attack,” the Committee said.

That pressure is not theoretical.

Pillay herself has spent the past several years at the center of some of the most politically explosive applications of international law.

Her investigation of Gaza

Until recently, Pillay chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.

In September 2025, that Commission concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

That word has a very specific legal meaning. Genocide is not simply mass killing or extreme destruction. Under the Genocide Convention, investigators must establish both prohibited acts and a specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

Pillay’s Commission concluded that four of the five acts listed in the Convention had occurred in Gaza:

Killing members of the group.
Causing serious bodily or mental harm.
Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction.
And imposing measures intended to prevent births.

The Commission said the necessary genocidal intent could be inferred from statements by senior Israeli officials as well as from what it described as the broader pattern of conduct in Gaza. It also concluded that statements made by President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant amounted to incitement to genocide.

Israel categorically rejected the findings.

It accused the Commission of bias, rejected the genocide allegation and maintained that its military campaign was directed against Hamas following the October 7 attack.

And there is an important distinction here.

The Commission Pillay chaired was an investigative body created through the United Nations. It was not a court. Its finding that genocide had occurred was therefore not a final judicial ruling against Israel.

Today, following Pillay’s Nobel win, Netanyahu’s office again attacked her record and accused the Nobel Committee of having “lost its moral compass.”

Then, hours later, the United States sanctioned the ICC

Pillay was one of the International Criminal Court’s first judges, serving there from 2003 to 2008.

She does not currently serve at the ICC.

Today, she sits instead as an ad hoc judge at a different institution — the International Court of Justice — in the ongoing genocide case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar over the treatment of the Rohingya.

But only hours after she received a Nobel Prize largely honoring a career built around international legal institutions, the Trump administration announced sanctions against the ICC itself.

The United States had already sanctioned individual officials associated with the Court. Today’s move goes further.

The institution itself is now designated under President Trump’s executive order targeting the ICC.

The administration says the Court threatens U.S. sovereignty by attempting to exercise jurisdiction over Americans without U.S. consent. Washington has also fiercely opposed the ICC’s actions involving Israel, including its arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the ICC as a “rogue court” and said President Trump would not allow it to prosecute Americans.

The practical consequences could be significant: when the United States sanctions an institution, businesses subject to U.S. jurisdiction can be prohibited from conducting transactions with it.

That potentially reaches far beyond judges and prosecutors, affecting the banks, insurers, software and cloud providers, payment systems and other technology infrastructure an institution needs simply to operate.

Washington simultaneously issued several exemptions.

Certain transactions necessary to maintain ICC operations will be permitted for 180 days. The United States is also allowing specified IT and software services, transactions connected to the Court’s pension system and activities relating to ICC detainees.

The six-month period is deliberate. The administration says it is giving the countries that belong to the ICC time to address U.S. objections to the Court.

Rubio put the choice more starkly:

“Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC.”

The ICC has rejected the U.S. action and called on its 125 member states to ensure that the Court can continue functioning.

ICC, ICJ, UN Commission... What is the difference?

This is where the alphabet soup matters.

Pillay’s Gaza investigation was conducted by a UN Commission of Inquiry. It investigates and reports.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutes individuals accused of crimes including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The United States and Israel are not members of the ICC.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) hears legal disputes between states. And that is where Pillay works today.

She currently sits as an ad hoc judge in The Gambia v. Myanmar, a case accusing Myanmar of violating the Genocide Convention in its treatment of the Rohingya.

The ICJ has already ruled that it has jurisdiction to hear the case. The underlying genocide case continues.

And meanwhile, Washington is talking to Myanmar’s generals

This week, the Trump administration also made another significant move.

After years of diplomatic isolation following Myanmar’s 2021 military coup, senior U.S. officials have opened direct talks with the country’s military leadership. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Vance has held high-level discussions with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing.

Washington has several interests. It wants the release of a detained American. It wants cooperation against cyber-scam networks that have defrauded Americans. And it is exploring potential access to Myanmar’s rare-earth mineral resources.

The administration is also continuing contact with Myanmar’s democratic opposition and ethnic armed groups, which is an important qualification.

There is another geopolitical layer to Washington’s outreach. Since the 2021 coup, Russia has become one of Myanmar’s closest international partners, supplying weapons and aircraft, backing the military government diplomatically and expanding cooperation in energy, nuclear technology and trade. Min Aung Hlaing has visited Russia repeatedly and has developed a close relationship with Vladimir Putin. So the renewed U.S. engagement is also taking place in a country where Russia — along with China — has gained considerable influence during years of Western isolation.

But the juxtaposition is hard to ignore.

One international court is hearing allegations that Myanmar violated the Genocide Convention. Pillay is sitting on that case.

At the same time, Washington has begun direct negotiations with the government accused in those proceedings because it has immediate security, economic and diplomatic interests to pursue.

Again, none of those negotiations determine what the Court will decide and none of these developments are formally connected. But that is precisely the point.

So what comes after international law?

International law has never existed separately from political power.

Countries created these institutions. Countries fund them. Countries decide whether to join them. Countries decide whether to comply with their decisions. International courts do not have their own armies, police forces or economic systems capable of compelling the most powerful governments to cooperate.

Their authority ultimately depends on states accepting that there is value in rules that sometimes constrain them. Today provides an unusually clear picture of what happens when that consensus begins to fracture. A jurist whose career has centered on international accountability receives the world’s most famous peace prize. Hours later, the United States sanctions one of the institutions created to enforce international criminal law. At the same time, Washington negotiates with a military government facing genocide allegations before another international court.

None of this means international law has disappeared, but it does reveal its fundamental weakness.

Law can determine what states should do. Power often determines what they will do.

The question now is what happens when the gap between the two becomes too large to ignore.