Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

Expected. I'm so really surprised.

Uh, but it's a wonderful surprise when you're least expecting

to be honored. I've had many honors in my lifetime,

but you don't

expect any more honors once you turn eighty-five,

which is my age now. But this is, uh, about the

highest and best honor I received.

So if you don't mind for the press, I will be reading this

statement, which will be made available to you.

I am deeply honored and grateful to have been awarded

the twenty twenty-six Nobel Peace Prize.

Let me dedicate this award

to all of the survivors of international crimes,

as well as to practitioners and defenders of

international justice, whose compassion and

courage continue to ensure that

impunity will not be allowed to reign.

We are living through an era when international law and

human rights are under significant political

attack.

This worsening reality is particularly visible

with the attacks on the International Criminal Court.

As the Nobel Committee has rightly stated,

and I quote them, "An international legal system in which

war criminals are held to account and the

victims of abuse see justice served

is a precondition for a peaceful world."

Perhaps it was meant to be that I was in this historic

courtroom six hundred, where the Nuremberg trials were

held when the announcement was made, and I was

informed of the award.

So these efforts that we are now seeing,

which are attempts to weaken international criminal justice,

endanger the progress painstakingly

made since Nuremberg,

and they risk returning us to a world in which power

rather than law determines whose

suffering matters.

This award strengthens my conviction

that we must stand together in defense of the rule of law, in

defense of independent courts, and an

international legal order based on principle

rather than selectivity. The institutions that I

have had the privilege to serve, including the High Court of

South Africa, the International Criminal Court for

Rwanda,

the International Criminal Court in The Hague,

the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,

and the United Nations Commission of Inquiry

on Occupied Palestinian Territory,

and now as an ad hoc judge of the International Court of Justice

and, uh,

as a member of the International Nuremberg Principles

Academy. In all these positions, I have,

uh, represented this promise to

advance and protect the equal dignity of every human

being and the rights of women and children in

particular.

We must continue this mission and keep the promise

enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

I quote, "To save succeeding generations

from the scourge of war."

That is the promise we owe to all those victims and

survivors of international crimes and to our children

and those who will inherit the world tomorrow.

Thank you very much for your kind attention.