La Fontaine, Henri (1854-1943), was a Belgian international lawyer. He was a senator in the Belgian legislature from 1907 to 1943, a campaigner for women’s rights, and president of the International Peace Bureau. The bureau won the Nobel Prize for peace in 1910 under La Fontaine’s leadership, and La Fontaine himself won the award in 1913 for his work as its president.
La Fontaine was a renowned internationalist and socialist. He helped to found La Justice, a socialist journal, and the review La Vie Internationale. He was a member of the Belgian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and to the first assembly of the League of Nations in 1920-1921 (see League of Nations ). La Fontaine proposed a range of international institutions and organizations, including a world school, university, parliament, language, court of justice, bank, and library.
La Fontaine’s political career includes much work as a Socialist Party member of the Belgian Senate. He was secretary of the senate from 1907 to 1919 and vice president from 1919 to 1932. His principal political concerns were labor, education, and foreign affairs. He gave legislative support to, among other things, the League of Nations and an economic union with Luxembourg. He also believed in the importance of legislation in settling international disputes.
La Fontaine devoted much time and effort to the International Peace Bureau, which was founded in 1891. He became president of the bureau in 1907. He helped the bureau bring about the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 (see International law (In the 1800’s) ). He also became a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and, in 1907, cofounded the Union of International Associations, which he directed as secretary-general (see Inter-Parliamentary Union ).
La Fontaine wrote many works on international law and peace, particularly between 1894 and 1915. In 1902, he also wrote the vast works Pasicrisie internationale: Histoire documentaire des arbitrages internationaux, 1794-1900 (Pasicrisie: Documentary History of International Arbitration, 1794-1900), and, in 1904, Bibliographie de la paix et de l’arbitrage international (Bibliography of International Peace and Arbitration). He also offered guidelines for international relations in The Great Solution: Magnissima Charta. La Fontaine also wrote books on mountaineering, translations of parts of Richard Wagner’s operas, a volume of poetry, and essays on libraries, women in the legal profession, and the status of women in America.
La Fontaine gave lectures on such subjects as disarmament, the League of Nations, and the relationship between law and international political and moral crises. He also gave lectures on modern movements in the arts.
Henri-Marie La Fontaine was born in Brussels, Belgium. He studied law at the University of Brussels.
