Moneta was the founder and president of the Lombard Peace Union. In 1906, he presided over the fifteenth International Peace Congress in Milan. Also, he founded other peace organisations.
He was a politician and a journalist. He was often called a “militant pacifist”. He was an Italian patriot, a nationalistic internationalist and a deeply religious anticlerical propagandist. At the age of 15, he took part in the uprising against Austria. Between 1859 and 1860, he fought with Garibaldi. This first experience of fighting and seeing people die laid the foundations for his pacifist and nationalistic views. Between 1848 and 1866, he devoted a lot of time to fighting for the Italian independence and unification. In 1861, he entered the army. After abandoning his military career, he worked as the editor of the Milan newspaper “Il Secolo” (1867-95), which proved to be the ideal outlet for his dynamism and idealism.
In 1898, he founded the pacifist periodical “Vita internazionale” (“International Life”).
Moneta was respected for his integrity, courage and willingness to accept innovations.
Renault was a co-founder of the Institute of International Law and arbitrator in international disputes. After seven years of studying three branches of law in Paris (1861-1868), he became a lecturer. He was devoted to teaching and research. Many of his students held important diplomatic positions in France and abroad.
Renault was a legal adviser to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For 20 years, he represented France at many conferences on, among other things, law, international transport, military aviation, circulation of obscene literature, abolition of white slavery or commercial papers used in international transactions.
When the Hague Tribunal was opened to conduct cases of international arbitration, Renault was voluntarily selected as the arbitrator more times than anyone else from the panel of 27 members in the first fourteen years of the tribunal’s existence. Moreover, Renault was chosen to be President of the Academy of International Law established in The Hague in 1914.
