Élie Ducommun managed the International Peace Bureau (IPB), founded in 1891, and later became its honorary secretary-general. The IPB linked peace societies worldwide and held annual conferences advocating arbitration courts and disarmament. Using his language skills and journalistic background, Ducommun sent policy briefs and newspaper articles to parliamentarians and diplomats across Europe. In an age of imperial rivalry and arms races, the IPB still succeeded in shaping the agenda of the 1899 Hague Peace Conference. His dedicated lobbying and information work moved grassroots activism onto the international diplomatic stage, leading to his Nobel Peace Prize in 1902.

While serving as public relations officer for the Swiss Federal Railways, Ducommun simultaneously organised the IPB as an unpaid honorary secretary-general. Funded by membership fees and donations, the Bureau’s annual congresses adopted concrete policy proposals including disarmament schemes, a permanent court of arbitration and a universal arbitration treaty. Fluent in French, German and English, he edited minutes and pamphlets in several languages, reducing information asymmetry between activists and diplomats. His correspondence network reached beyond Europe to the Americas and Japan, thus pioneering international public opinion building. As a civil society delegate to the Hague Peace Conference he even provided draft wording to governmental negotiators, exerting practical influence. This behind-the-scenes infrastructure is often cited as a prototype of modern international NGO practice.

Ducommun’s office, a small room in Bern’s old town, processed more than 4,000 pieces of correspondence annually. He compiled comparative tables visualising great-power military budgets and distributed them to parliaments as empirical backing for disarmament resolutions. The IPB adopted a Rules-of-Order procedure, designating French as the authentic text and issuing official translations in German, English, Italian and Spanish, thereby institutionalising multilingual operations. In 1896 he launched the journal “Correspondance bi-mensuelle,” publishing scholarly peace studies and movement reports every two weeks. The IPB’s archival data were later incorporated into the Hoover War Library, becoming primary sources for international relations research. Scholars note that Ducommun’s secretariat model influenced subsequent administrative practices of bodies such as the International Sociological Association and the International Labour Organization.