Carlos Saavedra Lamas (November 1, 1878 – May 5, 1959) was an Argentine academic and politician, and in 1936, the first Latin American Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

After study in Paris and travel abroad, he accepted a professorship in law and constitutional history at the University of La Plata, where he began the teaching career that was to span more than forty years.

Saavedra Lamas began his political career in 1906 as director of Public Credit and then became the secretary-general for the municipality of Buenos Aires in 1907.

Saavedra Lamas though was also a controversial public figure as he was seen by the masses as an elitist patrician who was too conservative and favored British intervention, especially in railroad construction.

In 1932 he initiated at Washington the Declaration of August 3 which put the American states on record as refusing to recognize any territorial change in the hemisphere brought about by force.

Meanwhile, in 1934, Saavedra Lamas presented the South American Antiwar Pact to the League of Nations where it was well received and signed by eleven countries.

Saavedra Lamas was known as a strict disciplinarian in his office, a logician at the conference table, a charming host in his home or his art gallery, and a man of sartorial elegance who wore, it is said, the highest collars in Buenos Aires.