René Cassin

Drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1947–1948)

• After WWI he fought to make compensation for war victims a right rather than charity, backing prosthetics, retraining, loans and state protection for 800,000 war orphans.^[3],[4]
• In 1940 he drafted Free France's founding agreement with Churchill, signed on 7 August 1940, and wrote the statutes of the Order of the Liberation.^[5]
• The UN calls the Declaration the foundation of international human rights law, inspiring more than 80 treaties and declarations. It is the world's most translated document.^{[9],[10],[17]}
• The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a binding treaty Cassin helped prepare, entered into force in 1976 and now has 175 states parties.^[4],[18]
• He presided over the European Court of Human Rights from May 1965 to June 1968, a court whose judgments carried binding authority for the states that accepted it.^[3],[19]
• He founded the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg in 1969, using most of his Nobel Prize money. It still teaches and researches human rights law.^[13],[16]

Cassin's impact is legal and moral, so this profile makes no numerical claims. Counting the people helped by the Universal Declaration would mean guessing how the world would look without it, and no credible figure exists. What can be documented: a list of rights that applies to every person became the foundation of international human rights law. It inspired more than 80 treaties and declarations, including a binding covenant on civil and political rights that 175 states have joined. Cassin also presided over the European Court of Human Rights in its early years. Earlier he helped turn aid for France's war-disabled and war orphans into a legal right, gave Free France its legal footing, and rebuilt a Jewish school network after the war. The gap between the Declaration's promises and reality remains wide, as Cassin himself insisted.

Human rightsPeaceEducation

No number is given here on purpose. Some contributions cannot be counted honestly, and we would rather describe them than invent a figure.

• Minor

  Contested credit as the Declaration's 'father'

  The Nobel Committee said Cassin drew up the Declaration, and he was often called its father. The UN's own history credits John Humphrey of the UN Secretariat with the blueprint and Cassin with the first draft, which built on it. Humphrey won formal credit only near the end of his life, once a first draft in his own handwriting came to light.^{[1],[4],[7],[11]}

• Minor

  A declaration without teeth

  The Declaration is not legally binding and its principles are routinely violated. The binding covenants took 18 years to adopt, and Cassin himself said their enforcement measures were weakened until they became largely optional. Even France had not ratified the European human rights convention while he led its court.^[3],[4],[11]

• —

  Discrimination

  He grew up amid the Dreyfus affair, the antisemitic scandal in which a Jewish French army officer was wrongly convicted of treason. His family discussed it often, and he later said the injustice moved him deeply.^[3],[15]

• 1914

  War

  Leading a small assault unit near Saint-Mihiel in October 1914, he was badly wounded by machine-gun fire and was invalided out of the army.^[5]

• 1940

  Exile

  Refusing the armistice, he sailed from Saint-Jean-de-Luz on 24 June 1940 and spent the war with the Free French in London and Algiers.^[5]

• —

  Persecution

  The Vichy government stripped him of his French citizenship and sentenced him to death in absentia for joining de Gaulle.^[4]

• 1940

  Discrimination

  Vichy's Jewish Statutes of October 1940 and June 1941 excluded Jews from public life and barred them from professions including law and teaching.^[12]

• —

  Family killed

  Several members of his family were murdered in the Holocaust. A family account says relatives were deported to Auschwitz and the family estate where he spent his childhood was plundered.^[6],[15]

Cassin was born in Bayonne to Jewish parents, Henri Cassin, a merchant, and Gabrielle Dreyfus. A family account describes a Sephardic, Orthodox household in which his mother had him taught at home so the family could keep the Sabbath. As an adult he was above all a committed French republican, but he stayed active in Jewish life. In 1943 de Gaulle asked him to lead the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a French-Jewish school network then close to collapse, and he headed it for 33 years, until his death. He also helped found a council of Jewish organizations that backed the new UN human rights system, and became honorary president of the World Sephardi Federation.^{[2],[6],[13],[14],[15]}

1. October 5, 1887

   Born in Bayonne, in southwest France, to Jewish parents; his father was a merchant.^{[1],[2],[6],[15]}

2. October 1914

   Earns his doctorate in law, economics and politics, is called up, and is badly wounded by machine-gun fire near Saint-Mihiel.^[2],[5]

3. 1918

   Founds a federation of disabled war veterans, which he leads as president or honorary president until 1940.^[2]

4. 1924

   Becomes a French delegate to the League of Nations, working on disarmament until 1938.^[2],[5]

5. 1929

   Takes up the chair of fiscal and civil law at the University of Paris, where he teaches until 1960.^[2]

6. June 24, 1940

   Sails for England to join de Gaulle; weeks later he drafts the 7 August accord with Churchill that gives Free France legal standing.^[5]

7. 1943

   At de Gaulle's request, becomes president of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, which he leads until his death.^{[6],[13],[14]}

8. 1944

   Becomes vice-president of France's Council of State, its highest administrative court, serving until 1960.^[2],[5]

9. 1946

   Joins the new UN Commission on Human Rights as France's member; he later serves as its vice-chairman and, in 1955-57, its chairman.^[2],[8]

10. December 10, 1948

    The UN General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris, with no votes against.^[3],[7],[20]

11. May 20, 1965

    Becomes president of the European Court of Human Rights, serving until June 1968.^[19]

12. 1968

    Wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle to secure the rights set out in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.^[1]

13. February 20, 1976

    Dies in Paris at age 88.^[1]

14. 1987

    His remains are moved to the Panthéon in Paris, the resting place of France's national heroes.^[5]

1. 1.René Cassin – Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
2. 2.René Cassin – Biographical · NobelPrize.org; from Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970 (Elsevier), 1972
3. 3.René Cassin – Nobel Lecture: The Charter of Human Rights · NobelPrize.org, 1968
4. 4.Award ceremony speech, Nobel Peace Prize 1968 (Aase Lionaes) · NobelPrize.org, 1968
5. 5.René CASSIN (Compagnon de la Libération biography) · Ordre de la Libération et son Musée
6. 6.Cassin, René Samuel · Encyclopaedia Judaica (via Encyclopedia.com), 2007
7. 7.History of the Declaration · United Nations
8. 8.Drafters of the Declaration · United Nations
9. 9.Universal Declaration of Human Rights · Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
10. 10.Most translated document · Guinness World Records, 2009
11. 11.John Peters Humphrey · The Canadian Encyclopedia
12. 12.France (Holocaust Encyclopedia) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
13. 13.René Cassin · Alliance Israélite Universelle
14. 14.René Cassin and the Alliance Israélite Universelle (Jay Winter), Modern Judaism 32(1): 1-21 · Oxford University Press, 2012
15. 15.Who was Monsieur René Cassin? (with a family account by Caroline Cassin) · René Cassin (UK human rights charity)
16. 16.Fondation René Cassin – Institut international des droits de l'homme · Fondation René Cassin (IIDH)
17. 17.The Foundation of International Human Rights Law · United Nations
18. 18.International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: status of ratification · United Nations Treaty Collection
19. 19.Presidency of the Court (former presidents) · European Court of Human Rights
20. 20.Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Drafting History: General Assembly plenary · United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library