Nobel Peace Prize goes to South African human rights pioneer Navi Pillay

JUST IN: South African human rights pioneer Navi Pillay wins the Nobel Peace Prize, honoured for her advocacy of international law.

The Nobel Peace Prize goes to Navi Pillay. The South African human rights pioneer was named this morning, honoured for a lifetime spent fighting for international law. The announcement came out of Oslo, and honestly, this one feels less like a surprise and more like the committee finally catching up.

If the name rings a bell, it should. Pillay grew up under apartheid in Durban, built her career as a lawyer defending people the state wanted silenced, then went global. She served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and sat as a judge on the international tribunals that put genocide on trial.

She's spent decades arguing that the law applies to the powerful too, which is not a popular position with the powerful. Now it comes with a Nobel.

A girl born under apartheid, now holding the world's most famous peace prize. That's the whole story right there.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.