Henri Marie La Fontaine | |
|---|---|
 La Fontaine,c. 1914 | |
| Born | Henri Marie La Fontaine (1854-04-22)22 April 1854 Brussels, Belgium |
| Died | 14 May 1943(1943-05-14) (aged 89) Brussels, Belgium |
| Occupation | lawyer |
| Known for | Nobel Peace Prize (1913) |
Henri La Fontaine (French pronunciation:[ɑ̃ʁilafɔ̃ˈtɛn]; 22 April 1854 – 14 May 1943), was a Belgian international lawyer and president of theInternational Peace Bureau. He received theNobel Peace Prize in 1913 because "he was the effective leader of thepeace movement in Europe."[1]
La Fontaine was born inBrussels on 22 April 1854 and studied law at theFree University of Brussels (now split into theUniversité libre de Bruxelles and theVrije Universiteit Brussel). He was admitted to the bar in 1877 and established a reputation as an authority oninternational law. He and his sisterLéonie La Fontaine were early advocates forwomen's rights andsuffrage, founding in 1890 theBelgian League for the Rights of Women.[2] In 1893, he became professor of international law at the Free University of Brussels and two years later was elected to the Belgian Senate as a member of the Socialist Party. He served as vice chairman of the Senate from 1919 to 1932.
La Fontaine took an early interest in the International Peace Bureau, founded in 1882, and was influential in the Bureau's efforts to bring about The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907. He served as president of the Bureau from 1907 until his death in 1943.[2] World War I convinced La Fontaine that the world would establish an international court when peace returned. He proposed a number of possible members, includingJoseph Hodges Choate,Elihu Root,Charles William Eliot, andAndrew Dickson White.[3] La Fontaine also promoted the idea of unification of the world'spacifist organizations.[4]
He was a member of the Belgian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and to the League of Nations Assembly (1920–21).[2] In other efforts to foster world peace, he founded the Centre Intellectuel Mondial (later merged into the League of Nations Institute for Intellectual Co-operation) and proposed such organizations as a world school and university, and a world parliament. In 1907, withPaul Otlet, he founded theUnion of International Associations. He also is the co-founder of Institut International de Bibliographie (which later became theInternational Federation for Information and Documentation,FID) along withPaul Otlet. It was in this role that he and Otlet attended theWorld Congress of Universal Documentation in 1937.[5]
Henri La Fontaine was afreemason, and a member of the lodgeLes Amis Philanthropes in Brussels. He died on 14 May 1943 in Brussels.
Henri La Fontaine was the author of a number of legal handbooks and a documentary history of international arbitration:
He was also founder of the reviewLa Vie Internationale.
