Philippe Sands to receive the 2026 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade

The Board of Trustees of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade has chosen French-British lawyer and author Philippe Sands to receive this year’s award.

Sebastian Guggolz, president of the Börsenverein (German Publishers and Booksellers Association) and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Peace Prize, issued the following statement in honour of the recipient:

“One of the most important intellectual voices of our time, Philippe Sands is a French-British lawyer and writer who advocates for justice, peace and the unwavering defence of international law. Descended from Holocaust survivors, he draws on his own family history to trace the emergence of this body of law, illuminating the experiences that lie behind the legal concepts of ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. In his literary work, which is distinguished both by narrative brilliance and historical depth, Philippe Sands devotes as much attention to the motives of the perpetrators as to the suffering and lives of the victims. Through his balanced and consistently empathetic portrayals, each individual is given a voice and accorded dignity and respect. At the heart of his legal work is a commitment to the universal rights of every human being, evidenced in his advocacy for victims of war crimes, racism, torture and colonial injustice. The campaign to establish ecocide as a criminal offence before the International Court of Justice – making the destruction of ecosystems punishable under international law – also stems from his initiative. Philippe Sands is far more than a chronicler of crimes and violations of international law. He is a committed humanist and author who, despite growing resistance, tirelessly fights for human rights, justice and mutual understanding.”

Philippe Sands, born on 17 October 1960 in London, is a professor of international law at University College London and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. He regularly acts as counsel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and his involvement in several landmark cases in international law has made him one of the leading human rights lawyers of our time.

Sands developed an early interest in international law and, as both a lawyer and a professor, he has consistently advocated for humanitarian causes and the strengthening of international legal norms. In more than two dozen cases to date, he has appeared as counsel before the International Court of Justice. Among others, he represented the Solomon Islands in proceedings concerning the threat and use of nuclear weapons; he represented Georgia in its dispute with Russia over the South Ossetia conflict; and he represented Palestine in proceedings concerning the legality of the Israeli occupation. He is currently acting for The Gambia in its case against Myanmar concerning the military’s act of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

As Director of the Centre for International Courts and Tribunals at University College London, Sands plays a leading role in research and teaching on international dispute resolution. In the early 2020s, prompted by the growing frequency of ecological disasters linked to global warming, he joined with fellow legal scholars to develop the concept of ecocide. Since then, he has campaigned vigorously for the recognition of ecocide as a crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Since 2016, in addition to publishing legal articles and textbooks, Sands has also been active as a non-fiction writer, taking an approach that transcends the usual boundaries between non-fiction, literary narrative and reportage.

In his first two publications, Sands wrote against forgetting, weaving personal life stories into explorations of some of the most urgent questions in international law: “East West Street” (2016) recounts the persecution and murder of Jewish people in Lviv during the German occupation, while also tracing the life paths of two Jewish jurists who became pivotal to the field of international law. “The Ratline” (2020) examines the life of SS officer Otto Wächter. Two criminal cases in which Sands played a key role at the International Court of Justice would become the basis of two later publications: “The Last Colony” (2022) explores the case of the Chagos Archipelago, whose inhabitants were forced to leave their homeland between 1968 and 1973 to make way for a US military base, while “38 Londres Street” (2025) examines the case against Augusto Pinochet, which raised the historically significant question of whether a former head of state can claim immunity when accused or torture and other grave human rights violations.

Sands has received numerous awards for his books, including the Baillie Gifford Prize (2016), the Wingate Literary Prize (2017), the British Book Award (2017), den Prix Montaigne (2018), the Austrian Booksellers’ Honorary Award for Tolerance in Thought and Action (2023) and the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize (2025). Sands lives with his wife and three children in London.

The Board of Trustees of the Peace Prize is currently made up of Klaus Brinkbäumer, Dr. Peter Frey, Hadija Haruna-Oelker, Sebastian Guggolz, Jo Lendle, Jagoda Marinić, Prof. Dr. Ethel Matala de Mazza, Christiane Schulz-Rother and Prof. Dr. Mirjam Zadoff.

The Peace Prize award ceremony will take place on Sunday 11 October 2026 in the Church of St. Paul in Frankfurt am Main. The event will be broadcast live at 10:45 am on German public television (ARD). The Peace Prize has been awarded since 1950 and is endowed with a sum of €25,000.

For more information, visit www.friedenspreis-des-deutschen-buchhandels.de.

A press photo of Philippe Sands is available for download at www.boersenverein.de/pressefotos.