Ducommun, Élie

Élie Ducommun, (born Feb. 19, 1833, Geneva, Switz.—died Dec. 7, 1906, Bern), Swiss writer and editor who in 1902, with Charles-Albert Gobat, won the Nobel Prize for Peace.

After working as a magazine and newspaper editor in Geneva and Bern, Ducommun spent most of his career as general secretary of the Jura-Simplon Railway. His spare time, however, was spent on peace activities. He took an active part in the movement for European union, editing Les États-Unis d’Europe, the periodical of the International League of Peace and Freedom, founded in 1867.

In 1889 Ducommun participated in the first of the regular International Peace congresses. Two years later he became honorary general secretary of the newly founded International Peace Bureau. After 1895 he published the bureau’s Correspondance bi-mensuelle. In this period Ducommun also wrote a number of works on the peace movement.