Beernaert, << BAYR nart, >> Auguste Marie Francois (1829-1912), a Belgian politician and pacifist, won the 1909 Nobel Prize for peace for his work on the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The court was established in 1899 to handle legal disputes between nations. Beernaert shared the prize with Paul d’Estournelles of France (see Estournelles de Constant, Paul Henri d’ ).
Beernaert served as prime minister of Belgium from 1884 to 1894. During that time, he effected social and judicial reforms in Belgium in order to protect the welfare of working people. He also revised the constitution to grant suffrage (voting rights) to many more people than had previously been allowed to vote.
Internationally, Beernaert became heavily involved in attempts to abolish slavery after being shocked at Belgium’s exploitation of the Congo Free State in Africa. He also presided for several years over the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a world organization of parliaments of sovereign states, which was founded in 1889. In 1902, at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, Beernaert represented Mexico in its dispute with the United States.
Beernaert was born at Ostend in Belgium into a middle-class Catholic family. In 1846, he entered the University of Louvain where, in 1851, he received his doctorate in law with the highest distinction. He then spent two years at the universities of Paris, Heidelberg, and Berlin studying the status of legal education in France and Germany.
Beernaert was admitted to the bar in 1853 and in 1873 was appointed to the cabinet as minister of public works. In 1874, he was elected to parliament. His party was defeated in 1878 but regained power in 1884. From then until 1894, Beernaert served as prime minister of Belgium, and afterwards returned to his legal practice while continuing to work for the government in an advisory capacity. He was president of the International Law Association from 1903 to 1905. He died in Lucerne, Switzerland.
