Peace: 1907

1) Moneta, Ernesto Teodoro, pronounced moh NAYT uh, ayr NEHS toh tay oh DAWR oh (1833-1918), an Italian journalist and peace activist, was awarded half of the 1907 Nobel Prize for peace for his work promoting world peace. The other half of the prize was awarded to Frenchman Louis Renault.

Moneta was born in Milan, Italy. Moneta spent much of his time between 1848 and 1866 fighting for Italian unification and independence. Moneta became editor of Il Secolo (The Century), a daily newspaper to which he had previously contributed theater reviews. Despite being a Roman Catholic, he allowed Il Secolo to take a secular (nonreligious) stance in the interests of Italian unity. He founded the Lombard League for Peace in 1887 and organized several peace conferences in Italy. He was also the Italian representative to the International Peace Bureau, founded in 1891.

After retiring as editor of Il Secolo, Moneta founded an annual almanac called L'Amico della Pace (The Friend of Peace) and a pacifist periodical, La Vita Internazionale (International Life). He wrote a four-volume work, Wars, Insurrections and Peace in the Nineteenth Century, which was published between 1903 and 1910.

Moneta was often called a "militant pacifist" because he campaigned for patriotism and national defence on the one hand, and international peace on the other. In 1911, he supported Italy's war against Turkey and, in 1915, he argued that Italy should enter World War I (1914-1918) to combat Austria-Hungary and Germany.

2) Renault, Louis, pronounced reh NOH, lwee (1843-1918), was a French jurist (expert in law), university professor, educator, and pacifist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace in 1907 for his work on peace conferences. Renault shared the prize with the Italian pacifist Ernesto Moneta.

Louis Renault was born in Autun, France. He studied literature at the University of Dijon and law at the University of Paris. He returned to Dijon to be a lecturer in Roman and commercial law, and then went back to Paris to lecture in criminal law. In 1874, he was asked to become a professor of international law and, despite his initial reluctance, he continued in the field with such distinction that by 1881 he was offered the chair of international law. He wrote several books, including Introduction a l'Etude de Droit International (Introduction to the Study of International Law, 1879) and, with Charles Lyon-Caen, Traite de Droit Commercial (Treatise on Commercial Law, 1889-1899).

Much of Renault's work before 1890 centered on the problems of ownership rights in art and literature. In 1890, however, Renault became an adviser on legal matters to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this capacity, he advised the ministry on international law and represented France at many international conferences.

In 1914, Renault was appointed to the panel of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, in the Netherlands, and became president of the Academy of International Law at The Hague, which was created in 1914.