Society, Peace & Law

Peacemakers, jurists, teachers, ecologists and explorers.

Narrow by discipline

Curated highlights

Laureates and fully researched profiles first, in order of birth.

First non-European Nobel laureate; wrote two nations' anthems.

Twenty-seven years in prison, then negotiated the end of apartheid without civil war.

Lent $27 of his own money and started a global industry for the poor.

Letter from Birmingham Jail and a movement that rewrote American law.

Africa's first elected woman head of state; rebuilt post-war Liberia.

UN Secretary-General who put human security at the centre of the organisation.

Peace laureates and negotiators who ended wars, built institutions and defended non-violence.

Campaigners and jurists who turned rights from rhetoric into enforceable law.

Jurists and codifiers whose statutes and judgments still frame courts worldwide.

Educators who invented mass schooling, literacy campaigns and child-centred pedagogy.

Ecologists and campaigners who founded conservation and the modern environmental movement.