Politics
Navi Pillay, the woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, has strongly criticized US President Donald Trump’s policies.
Navi Pillay, the woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, has strongly criticised US President Donald Trump’s policies. Trump had yet to come to terms with being denied the Nobel Peace Prize for the second consecutive time when this year’s laureate, Navi Pillay, launched a sharp criticism of him. The controversy stems from the sanctions imposed by the US president on the International Criminal Court (ICC).
According to international media reports, Pillay strongly condemned Trump’s sanctions against the ICC, describing the decision as illegal. She said Trump needed to learn the basics of international law. Addressing the US president, the 85-year-old Nobel laureate said, “Call your legal advisers and ask them to explain what international law is and why we consider your interference in the work of an independent international court to be illegal.”
Navi Pillay, the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, further stated that the announcement of US sanctions against the court just hours after she won the Nobel Prize was no coincidence. Rather, she suggested, it was a reaction to Trump not receiving the award. She dismissed Trump’s call for reforms at the International Criminal Court as merely a diplomatic pretext. Pillay added that what the US president really wanted was an assurance that no investigations would be conducted against American citizens.
It is worth noting that Trump announced sanctions against the International Criminal Court last Friday, with the stated aim of paralysing its day-to-day operations. The court prosecutes individuals accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The Trump administration had expressed anger over the ICC judges’ decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in connection with the Gaza war. The administration vowed to dismantle the court. The sanctions are expected to affect the court’s technical and banking operations and will take effect after six months.
