Peace: 1911

1) Asser, Tobias Michael Carel (1838-1913), a Dutch jurist and professor of law, specialized in international law. In 1911, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace for organizing conferences on international law and for helping to form the Permanent Court of Arbitration--one of the first attempts to set up an international court of justice. The aim of the court is to provide peaceful means of settling international legal disputes.

In 1869, Asser helped to found a journal, the Revue de droit international et de legislation comparee (Review of International Law and of Comparative Legislation). Asser took part in a conference in Ghent, Belgium, which established the Institute of International Law. He later became head of the institute.

In the early 1890's, Asser called upon the Dutch government to establish a series of conferences between European powers, with the aim of codifying international private law. Asser presided over many of these conferences. The conferences of 1893 and 1894 drew up a standard international procedure for conducting civil trials. The 1900 and 1904 conferences also established several treaties about questions of international family law.

Asser's political career included being adviser to the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a member of the Council of State--the most important administrative body in the government, delegate to the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, and minister without portfolio from 1904 until his death. From 1875 to 1913, almost every treaty concluded by the Dutch government was achieved with Asser's help.

Asser was born in Amsterdam. From 1862 until 1893, he taught commercial and private international law at the University of Amsterdam.

2) Fried, Alfred Hermann (1864-1921), an Austrian journalist, publisher, and pacifist, won the Nobel Prize for peace in 1911 for his writings on peace as editor of the journal Die Friedenswarte (Peace Watch). Tobias Asser shared the 1911 peace prize.

Fried became actively involved in the peace movement after meeting the Austrian author and peace campaigner Baroness Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914). In 1892, he founded the Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft (German Peace Society) and edited its journal, Monatliche Friedenkorrespondenz (Monthly Peace Letters), from 1894 to 1899. He also published two other peace journals: Die Waffen nieder (Lay Down Your Arms), which was edited by von Suttner, and the periodical that replaced it, Die Friedenswarte.

In 1905, Fried founded Annuaire de la vie internationale (Yearbook of International Life). He was particularly influenced by the Pan-American movement and the work of the Hague Conferences. He began to see the importance of economic and political cooperation as a basis for world peace and considered such cooperation more valuable than arms limitation or programs for international justice.

In addition to his writings on the subject of world peace, Fried was also a great organizer for the pacifist movement. He served as a member of the Bern Peace Bureau, secretary of International Conciliation for Central Europe, and secretary-general of the International Press Union for Peace. He also helped set up the Society for International Understanding in 1911.

Fried was born in Vienna, Austria. He moved to Berlin, Germany, where, in 1887, he started a publishing company. During World War I (1914-1918), he lived in Switzerland, where he worked for international peace and to improve conditions for prisoners of war.