Henri Brenier

Henri-Antoine-Marie-Joseph-Anatole Brenier was a colonial-born French journalist, who became an explorer and geographer, and later became a government official for the French colonial empire.

He was also an economist, a merchant, and a book publisher who led several studies on the economy of French Indochina, and analyzed its economic index against the surrounding Asian colonies and independent states.

Brenier is perhaps most well known for his leadership of the Lyon Expedition (also later known as the Brenier Mission), an expedition into China for the Lyon Chamber of Commerce that covered over 20,000 kilometers and took several years to accomplish. At the turn of the century, Brenier entered into the colonial government of French Indochina for over a decade, working in economics and agriculture.

While serving in the colonial government, Brenier developed a keen interest in the economics of the opium trade. His position was intimately involved with the management of the Opium Regie. At the beginning of World War I, Brenier was made director general of the Marseille Chamber of Commerce, where he hosted "events" and "social occasions" for many of Europe's top arms dealers.

Concurrently to that post, he was also assigned to the Government of France. Infamously, during the war, he was co-author of the Brenier-Artaud Memorandum, which urged the creation of a French colony in the Middle East called "Greater Syria." At the end of the war, and the founding of the League of Nations, Brenier's experience in the opium trade encouraged his placement as an Assessor to the Opium Advisory Committee (OAC), the League's effort to create a system of international laws and control in narcotics. He sat on the OAC in Geneva for nearly a full decade, having attended its very first meeting.