The Nobel committee could not reach Navi Pillay before announcing her Peace Prize to the world, so the world heard first and the laureate heard second. This official Nobel Prize video records the follow-up call, when Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, formally told the 85-year-old jurist what the rest of us already knew.
Her answer gives the video its title and its charm: she would not believe it until she heard it from him. Then, laughing, she widened the frame instantly, calling the prize a recognition for everyone who does the quiet work of human rights and international law, people who, as she put it, never get recognised. It is a two-minute masterclass in how a lifetime’s recipient deflects a personal honour toward an institution, delivered on a crackling line from a conference in Nuremberg.
The call also carries the week’s poignancy. Pillay noted the climate of threat around the International Criminal Court, where she once sat as a judge; within hours, the United States sanctioned that court (see our report, “Washington Sanctions the Court Its Laureate Once Served”). The committee’s secretary, for his part, returned the compliment, telling her the committee knows institutions are faceless by design, and chose to insist that individuals make a difference.
Watch it after the announcement video on our Video desk for the announcement’s human echo. Video: Nobel Prize (official channel), embedded with credit.
