Nobel Belgians

A colleague of mine is very skeptical about global warming and believes humans have little effect on the warming of the globe. So when Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were awarded the Nobel Peace Price, I knew he would drop by for a little chat. What does Al Gore and co have to do with fostering peace? "It's all political", he said. We decided to look up the list of previous Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Indeed you wonder why some did earn the price.

I was surprised to see four five Belgians on the list. Although most of them won in a by gone era, when Europe was the center of the world and when Belgium was a little more relevant in the world.

• 1904 : Institut de Droit International
• 1909 : Auguste Marie François Beernaert, Member of the Cour Internationale d'Arbitrage.
• 1913 : Henri La Fontaine, President of the Permanent International Peace Bureau.
• 1958 : Georges Pire, leader of L'Europe du Coeur au Service du Monde, a relief organization for refugees.
• 1999: Artsen zonder grenzen (Medecins Sans Frontieres) (Wikipedia incorrectly listed them as French/Swiss, although Nobel organization lists them as Belgian)
  

Here's a chart of the number of Nobel Peace price laureates by country. (It is not perfect since e.g. Mother Teresa gives both Albania and India a point.)