US, Oct. 13 -- In a single day, the Nobel Committee honored international law, and Washington moved to cripple it. For New Delhi, the contrast is a useful clarifier. It took one sentence for Navi Pillay to puncture the most self-regarding campaign in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Receiving a standing ovation in Nuremberg, birthplace of modern international criminal justice, the 85-year-old South African jurist quipped: "If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump." Then, with a judge's caution, she added that she still wanted "to verify this."

The joke landed because everyone understood its target. Within hours, three narratives had converged: an award honoring the rule of law, an American president furious...