That court does not deserve the Sakharov Prize

Following the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Judge Navi Pillay, the International Criminal Court and its judges have been awarded the 2026 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The prize is named after a great scientist and freedom fighter, and over the years it has been awarded to figures of great stature and prestige in their struggles for freedom. Brezhnev offered him everything, but Sakharov decided to renounce the system and fight for human rights and freedom of thought. He paid the price with many years of humiliating exile and persecution. The Sakharov Prize has been awarded to Alexei Navalny, to imprisoned Belarusian and Georgian journalists, to the Ukrainian people, and to other courageous individuals and groups who have embodied concrete resistance – often solitary and dangerous – against oppressive regimes. Now it is being awarded to a court that many observers, not only American or Israeli ones, describe as an instrument of pressure and ideological indoctrination.

Sakharov was not an official of an international organisation. He was a man who, from within the Soviet system, denounced human rights abuses, censorship and the impunity of those in power. Subsequent laureates would share, to varying degrees, his situation of personal exposure. A permanent court, on the other hand, endowed with immense resources, diplomatic status and political support from dozens of states (including authoritarian ones), does not find itself in that situation. The Norwegian Nobel Prize has lost all credibility. The Sakharov Prize had, until now, held its ground because it was linked to specific individuals and concrete struggles. With this choice, the European Parliament has decided to align it with the logic of political signalling rather than that of moral and civic merit. There were also two Iranian girls nominated this year: they would have sent a far more serious and just signal that freedom is still a battle worth fighting.