Henri La Fontaine (1954-1943)

"The peoples are not awake...[There are dangers] which will render a world organization impossible. I foresee the renewal of...the secret bargaining behind closed doors. Peoples will be as before, the sheep sent to the slaughterhouses or to the meadows as it pleases the shepherds. International institutions ought to be, as the national ones in democratic countries, established by the peoples and for the peoples." - Henri La Fontaine

Belgian, international lawyer, professor of international law, senator for 36 years, Socialist, renowned bibliographer, devoted internationalist, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1913.

Contribution to the Peace Mouvement

La Fontaine entered the organized peace mouvement when Hodgson Pratt, the British pacifist, came to Belgium in the early 1880's to establish a branch of the International Arbitration and Peace Association. He went on to become the Secretary-General of the Société belge de l'arbitrage et de la paix in 1889, and participated actively in nearly all peace congresses held in the following 25 years. In 1907, he became President of the International Peace Bureau, and was influentual in the Bureau's efforts to bring about The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907. He was a member of the Belgian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, and to the League of Nations Assembly (1920-1921).

In other efforts to foster world peace, he founded the Centre intellectuel mondial, which later merged into the League of Nations Institute for Intellectual Cooperation, and proposed such organizations as a world school and university, a world parliament, and an international court of justice.