The 2026 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is being awarded to French-British lawyer and author Philippe Sands. He will receive the award on October 11 during the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Sebastian Guggolz, president of the Börsenverein and chairman of the Peace Prize board of trustees, said, "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."
Sands 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.
Sands's books include East West Street (2016), which 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), which examines the life of SS officer Otto Wächter; The Last Colony (2022), which explores the case of the Chagos Archipelago, whose inhabitants were forced to leave their homeland between 1968 and 1973 to make way for a U.S. military base; 38 Londres Street (2025), which examines the case against Augusto Pinochet.
Sands has received many awards for his books, including the Baillie Gifford Prize (2016), the Wingate Literary Prize (2017), the British Book Award (2017), the Prix Montaigne (2018), the Austrian Booksellers' Honorary Award for Tolerance in Thought and Action (2023), and the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize (2025).