International Criminal Court Named Winner of the European Parliament's 2026 Sakharov Prize

22 October 2026National

The European Parliament on 22 October 2026 named the International Criminal Court and its officials - judges, prosecutors and investigators - collective winners of the 2026 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The citation honoured its resilience in upholding international criminal justice under the Rome Statute amid sanctions, travel bans and political pressure over investigations touching powerful states. Instituted in 1988 and named after the Soviet physicist and Nobel Peace laureate Andrei Sakharov, the prize carries an endowment of 50,000 euros and is conferred at the Parliament's December plenary in Strasbourg. The inaugural 1988 award went jointly to Nelson Mandela and Anatoly Marchenko.

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The International Criminal Court was created by the Rome Statute of 1998, which came into force on 1 July 2002; the ICC sits at The Hague and India is not a party to the Statute | Andrei Sakharov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 | The ICC is distinct from the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, also seated at The Hague

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