Henri La Fontaine

Henri La Fontaine (; 22 April 1854 – 14 May 1943), was a Belgian international lawyer and president of the International Peace Bureau. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1913 because "he was the effective leader of the peace movement in Europe."

Biography La Fontaine was born in Brussels on 22 April 1854 and studied law at the Free University of Brussels (now split into the Université libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel). He was admitted to the bar in 1877 and established a reputation as an authority on international law. He and his sister Léonie La Fontaine were early advocates for women's rights and suffrage, founding in 1890 the Belgian League for the Rights of Women. World War I convinced La Fontaine that the world would establish an international court when peace returned. He proposed a number of possible members, including Joseph Hodges Choate, Elihu Root, Charles William Eliot, and Andrew Dickson White. 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).

Henri La Fontaine was a freemason, and a member of the lodge Les Amis Philanthropes in Brussels. He died on 14 May 1943 in Brussels.

Works Henri La Fontaine was the author of a number of legal handbooks and a documentary history of international arbitration: Les droits et des obligations des entrepreneurs de travaux publics (1885) Traité de la contrefaçon (1888) Pasicrisie internationale (1902) Bibliographie de la Paix et de l'Arbitrage (1904) He was also founder of the review La Vie Internationale.