The World Union for Protection of Life is an international non-profit organization and non-governmental organization which was founded 1958 in Salzburg (Austria) by the writer Günther Schwab. The concept Protection of Life is considered to be different from the protection of the environment as it has been used by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), though that organization was founded as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972.

Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time. For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. For his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of five people to have won more than one Nobel Prize. Of these, he is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes, and one of two people to be awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields, the other being Marie Curie.