US president Donald Trump has attacked Norway again over his snub for the Nobel Peace prize, describing this year’s winner Navi Pillay as a “liberal person who nobody has heard of.”
The South African former UN human rights chief was awarded the prize this year for being “instrumental in ensuring war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted”, according to Nobel committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes.
President Trump has long coveted the prize and made no secret of his aspiration to win it. He has previously heaped pressure on the committee to give him the prestigious accolade.
Speaking at a rally in Syracuse, New York, the US president said, “I know a lot a people; I’ve never heard of this person.
“In all of the wars I’ve settled, I never spoke to the UN; they were of no help to me. The United States of America, represented by me, your president, should’ve received the Nobel Peace Prize, and this is an indelible stain on the country of Norway, which made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision.”
Awarding the prize this year, the Nobel committee appeared to be aware of the pressure surrounding the announcement and said: “We see a shift towards power politics at the expense of legal frameworks and global respect for law and justice. Whenever might overtakes right, it undermines stability, trust and peaceful coexistence.”
“In awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wants to remind the world that the rule of law, national and international, underpins the system we have set up to ensure peace and resolve conflicts non-violently. Peace requires justice.”
At the Nuremberg court where Pillay was attending an academic and legal conference, she addressed attendees and made a joke at Mr Trump’s expense, in footage shared by Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnes Callamard.
Walking into a room of applause, she said: “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.”
The White House also reacted furiously to President Trump’s snub last year and accused the committee of placing “politics over peace” when the prize was awarded to Venezuela’sMaria Corina Machado, a democracy and peace activist who challenged Venezuela’s autocratic government.
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