A former judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the International Criminal Court, and the first woman of colour to serve as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Judge Pillay has consistently championed international justice, truth-telling, and the protection of human dignity.

The Peace Prize jury selected Judge Pillay from a field of strong and venerable candidates “for a lifetime of advocating for fundamental human rights, peace with justice and the rights of women, all of which serves a clarion call in the face of a growing culture of impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, towards accountability and responsibility”.

Judge Pillay was officially announced as the 2025 recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize at Sydney Town Hall on Thursday 22 May. The announcement ceremony was hosted by Sydney Peace Foundation patron and Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore, and attended by distinguished guests from the international legal, diplomatic, and human rights communities. 

On accepting the prize, Judge Pillay said: “I am deeply honoured to accept Australia’s premier international prize for peace, awarded by the Sydney Peace Foundation. To be recognised for a lifetime’s work devoted to human rights, peace, justice and equality is both humbling and profoundly meaningful. This award is not mine alone. It belongs to all those who, across decades and continents, have stood up against injustice – often at great personal cost. It belongs to every survivor who found the courage to testify, to every human rights defender who remains steadfast in the face of threats and hostility, and to every young person who dares to believe in a better, more just world. We live in a world today still marred by war, poverty, racism and inequality. But we also live in a world where voices for justice are louder, more connected, and more courageous than ever before. The path ahead is neither easy nor short, but it is a path we must walk together – with integrity, with compassion, and with determination.”

City of Sydney Lord Mayor and Sydney Peace Foundation Patron Clover Moore said: “In a world where human rights are too often disregarded and justice delayed, Navi Pillay stands as a fearless defender of the rule of law. From challenging apartheid in South Africa to holding war criminals accountable on the global stage, her lifelong pursuit of justice reminds us that peace is not passive – it demands courage, integrity, and action. The Sydney Peace Prize honours her unwavering commitment to human dignity and her profound impact on international human rights law. As victims of wars across the globe continue face intolerable suffering, it is hard to remain optimistic and to believe that the rule of law will triumph. This award, and Navi’s extraordinary lifelong contribution to peace, remind us that we all have a responsibility to speak up about violations to human rights, corruption, repression, discrimination and inequality and that when we do, we can shape a better world.”

Professor Ben Saul from the University of Sydney Law School and United Nations Special Rapporteur said: “Navi Pillay is an icon of the international human rights movement, from confronting apartheid and promoting gender equality in South Africa, to serving on highest national and international courts, to leading the United Nations’ global human rights system. She has driven the law in progressive new directions, built lasting coalitions of human rights defenders, held the most powerful governments to account, and above all brought hope to victims.”

Melanie Morrison, Director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, said: “With the international rules-based order under threat, this year we acknowledge a beacon of integrity in global justice. Judge Navi Pillay has spent decades holding the most powerful to account and giving voice to the victims of atrocities – from apartheid South Africa and the Rwandan genocide, to ongoing human rights abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Myanmar.” 

The Sydney Peace Prize will be formally awarded to Judge Pillay later in November 2025. She will travel to Australia to accept the Prize on Thursday 6 November at Sydney Town Hall.

About the Sydney Peace Prize

The Sydney Peace Prize is Australia’s international prize for peace, awarded by the Sydney Peace Foundation at the University of Sydney. The Prize recognises leading global voices that promote peace, justice and nonviolence. Laureates include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Professors Noam Chomsky and Joseph Stiglitz, Patrick Dodson, Naomi Klein, the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

For over two decades, the Sydney Peace Prize has been awarded with the generous support of the City of Sydney, the University of Sydney and a broad coalition of donors and partners. Please join us on this journey for a fairer, more just world. For more information email peace.foundation@sydney.edu.au.

Media enquiries:

Melanie Morrison, Director, The Sydney Peace Foundation

E: melanie.morrison@sydney.edu.au

M: +61 (0) 401 996 451

University of Sydney Media Office

E: media.office@sydney.edu.au

M:  +61 2 8627 0246 (diverts to mobile)

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By Dr Eyal Mayroz, University of Sydney

The event, hosted by the Sydney Peace Foundation with support from USYD Faculty of Medicine and Health, was very timely—or more accurately, long overdue.

To be sure, many of us have been passionate and dedicated to addressing other man-made catastrophes, particularly the horrors in Gaza (my own tally of invited media engagements has been 140 on Israel-Palestine, compared to one only on Sudan). However, absent greater public attention to Sudan, the three-way dependency between media, audiences, and policymakers will remain at a standstill, allowing countless innocents to be massacred invisibly.

Now entering its third year, the war has reportedly claimed 150,000 lives, displaced 13 million people, and left 30 million (more than half the country’s population) fully dependent on humanitarian aid.

The term “civil war” is actually misleading, as we are witnessing a protracted power struggle between two brutal generals and their forces, both sides guilty of numerous mass atrocities against innocent civilians (though one side bears significantly more responsibility).

In the worst-affected western province of Darfur, an area the size of France, intermittent genocide has been taking place…since late 2003.

And the world remains silent.

Global media attention, and consequently public interest, has focused elsewhere, allowing governments to do what they do best—make moralizing statements of condemnation while committing vastly insufficient funds for humanitarian aid.

Under-resourced and understaffed NGOs—the few still operating on the ground in Darfur (most having withdrawn due to high risks to their staff)—are struggling against a fresh wave of mass killings, displacement, rape, insecurity, and enormous difficulties in bringing lifesaving aid into the war zone.

The absence of food, water, medicines, and other essentials led the UN to declare a state of famine in North Darfur, a year ago already. Yet, without political will to stop the fighting, conditions continue to deteriorate.

Three weeks ago, most of the 500,000 African-Sudanese inhabitants of Darfur’s largest IDP camp, Zamzam, were forced to flee for their lives after a long-warned-about assault by the RSF, a reincarnation of the original Janjaweed responsible for the 2004-2005 genocide. This is another ethnically targeted campaign of mass destruction, murder, and rape.

The use of the word “mass” can easily hide the fact that these are individual persons, women, children, elderly, and men, all with names and faces, and families who love them, if they are still alive, so important to try to keep that in mind.

I could continue on and on, but to keep this post concise, I’ll refer you to the highly authoritative update by Nathaniel Raymond, Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, who for the past two years has been “satellite tracking” and alerting the world to the unfolding mass atrocities. Nathaniel’s recent webinar is titled: “Watching a Genocide Unfold from Space: Monitoring Attacks on Civilians in Sudan.“

It is incumbent on all of us to pay more attention, make much more noise, and push more media to cover the situation in Sudan. Let’s show our Sudanese brothers and sisters, both here and in Sudan, that for us Australians, innocent Black lives matter as much as Brown and White.

Eyal Mayroz

PS. The UAE, Australia’s main trading partner in the Middle East, is the primary weapons supplier to the murderous RSF. Sudan recently took the UAE to the International Court of Justice on charges of aiding genocide, but the case was dismissed earlier this week due to jurisdictional issues (a matter of legal constraints unrelated to the merits of the case itself).

Despite well-documented evidence linking the UAE to the RSF and the prolonging of this war, we have yet to hear any response from Canberra on this troubling relationship.

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