Henri La Fontaine was a Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 international lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 and president of the International Peace Bureau

International Peace Bureau

International Peace Bureau is the world's oldest international peace federation. It was founded in 1891, and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910....

. He received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1913.

Biography

La Fontaine was born on 22 April 1854 and studied law at the Free University of Brussels

Free University of Brussels

The Free University of Brussels was a university in Brussels, Belgium. In 1969, it split into the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Dutch-speaking Vrije Universiteit Brussel....

 (now split into the Université Libre de Bruxelles

Université Libre de Bruxelles

The Université libre de Bruxelles is a French-speaking university in Brussels, Belgium. It has 21,000 students, 29% of whom come from abroad, and an equally cosmopolitan staff.-Name:...

 and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is a Flemish university located in Brussels, Belgium. It has two campuses referred to as Etterbeek and Jette.The university's name is sometimes abbreviated by "VUB" or translated to "Free University of Brussels"...

). He was admitted to the bar in 1877 and established a reputation as an authority on international law

International law

Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...

. He was an early advocate for women's rights

Women's rights

Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

 and suffrage

Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...

, founding in 1890 the Belgian League for the Rights of Women. and 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. World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 convinced La Fontaine that the world would to establish an international court when peace returned. He proposed a number of possible members, including Joseph Hodges Choate

Joseph Hodges Choate

Joseph Hodges Choate , was an American lawyer and diplomat.-Biography:He was born in Salem, Massachusetts on January 24, 1832. He was the son of physician George Choate and the brother of George C. S. Choate. His father's first cousin was Rufus Choate...

, Elihu Root

Elihu Root

Elihu Root was an American lawyer and statesman and the 1912 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the prototype of the 20th century "wise man", who shuttled between high-level government positions in Washington, D.C...

, Charles William Eliot

Charles William Eliot

Charles William Eliot was an American academic who was selected as Harvard's president in 1869. He transformed the provincial college into the preeminent American research university...

, and Andrew Dickson White

Andrew Dickson White

Andrew Dickson White was a U.S. diplomat, historian, and educator, who was the co-founder of Cornell University.-Family and personal life:...

. La Fontaine also promoted the idea of unification of the world's pacifist organizations.

He was a member of the Belgian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and to the League of Nations Assembly (1920-21). 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. He is the co-founder of Institut International de Bibliographie (which later became the International Federation for Information and Documentation

International Federation for Information and Documentation

The International Federation for Information and Documentation was an international organization that was created to promote universal access to all recorded knowledge.- History :...

, FID

International Federation for Information and Documentation

The International Federation for Information and Documentation was an international organization that was created to promote universal access to all recorded knowledge.- History :...

) along with Paul Otlet

Paul Otlet

Paul Marie Ghislain Otlet was an author, entrepreneur, visionary, lawyer and peace activist; he is one of several people who have been considered the father of information science, a field he called "documentation". Otlet created the Universal Decimal Classification, one of the most prominent...

. It was in this role that he and Otlet attended the World Congress of Universal Documentation

World Congress of Universal Documentation

The World Congress of Universal Documentation was held August 16–21, 1937, in Paris, France. Delegates from 45 countries met to discuss means by which all of the world's information, in print, in manuscript, and in other forms, could be efficiently organized and made accessible.-The Congress...

 in 1937.

He died on 14 May 1943.

Legacy

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 review La Vie Internationale. Henri La Fontaine was a freemason, and a member of the lodge Les Amis Philanthropes in Brussels.

External links

• Nobel Committee information on La Fontaine
• www.nobel-winners.com information about Henri La Fontaine - the above Wikipedia article (or an earlier version of it) is based on text from this source, which is licensed under the GFDL
  GNU Free Documentation License
  The GNU Free Documentation License is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify a work and requires all copies and...
  
  .