Overview
- The Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels announced on Thursday that Philippe Sands is the 2026 laureate of the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels.
- The prize carries a €25,000 award and will be presented at the Paulskirche on 11 October at the close of the Frankfurt Book Fair.
- The jury cited Sands’s long record as a human-rights lawyer at The Hague and as a professor at University College London and Harvard for his 'defense of human rights' and work on major cases.
- Reporters noted Sands’s involvement in cases concerning Palestine, the Rohingya in Myanmar and disputes between Georgia and Russia, and his collaboration with jurists to propose 'ecocide' as an international crime.
- Sands is also an established literary non-fiction author whose books weave personal family history with legal inquiry, a framing the jury said helps explain the origins and meaning of terms like 'genocide' and 'crimes against humanity', and could broaden public debate about international law.