Born in Ostend in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands 1829, he entered the Faculty of Law at the Catholic University of Leuven at age 17.

[1] He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1873, and became Minister of Public Works under Jules Malou, greatly improving the rail, canal and road systems.

He was also co-winner (with Paul d'Estournelles de Constant) of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1909 for his work at the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

He was chosen as president of the panel established under the rules of that organization in the Sarvarkar Case in 1911.

A number of conventions dealing with collision and assistance at sea drawn up in 1910 were soon signed by many nations.