René Cassin

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René Cassin
Monument to Cassin in Forbach

René Samuel Cassin ( October 5, 1887 in Bayonne - February 20, 1976 in Paris ) was a French lawyer , diplomat and educator . Cassin was awarded the Grand Cross of the French Legion of Honor and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968 as the author of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 .

life and work

René Cassin was the son of a Jewish merchant of Portuguese- Marran origin from Forbach in Lorraine , who later worked as a wine merchant in Nice. His mother was born Dreyfus from Alsace . After attending high school in Nice , René Cassin studied law in Aix-en-Provence and Paris and received his doctorate in law, economics and political science. In 1920 he was a professor at the University in Lille and stayed there until 1929, after which he moved to the University of Paris Sorbonne . Cassin decided early on in favor of peace treaties and endeavors secured by international law:

“When in 1921 the reconstruction of the interior (sc. France) took up all the people, the 'Union fédérale', spontaneously crossing the borders, took up the problem of general peace . The UF loudly advocates that France, by turning its victory (sc. Over the Central Powers in the First World War) to the benefit of all, also best serves its own interests, which are inseparable from PEACE. "

- René Cassin 1921

Work during the Second World War

Between 1924 and 1938 René Cassin was a representative of France in the League of Nations . In 1940 he left France and followed Charles de Gaulle to London to support him in calling for the war against Germany to be continued. As a result, he was stripped of his French citizenship and was sentenced to death in absentia by the Vichy regime . Together with de Gaulle he founded France libre , the free French armed forces within the British army. René Cassin negotiated their status with Winston Churchill and thus became permanent secretary of the Defense Council under de Gaulle. From 1941 to 1943 he was National Commissioner of the Free French Government in London and in 1944 he was one of the initiators of the French Committee for National Liberation in Algiers and President of the Legal Commission there, in which he prepared the foundations of French legislation after the Second World War.

Political career after the war

After the war, René Cassin was Vice President of the State Council from 1944 to 1960. At the same time, he was also President of the National School of Administration (ENA) and the Supreme Court of Arbitration from 1946 to 1960 . From 1946 to 1958 he was also the representative of France to the United Nations . He was one of the main initiators of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 , a large part of which he wrote himself. In 1945 he was also one of the founders of UNESCO . In 1959 he was Vice President of the European Court of Human Rights until 1965, then President until 1968. At the suggestion of the French Senate President, he was a member of the Conseil constitutionnel (Constitutional Court) from 1960 to 1971 .

René Cassin received the Nobel Prize in 1968 primarily for his work on the human rights declaration 20 years earlier and for his efforts to disseminate and enforce it. He used the prize money for the founding of the “International Institute for Human Rights” in Strasbourg in 1969 , in which lawyers from all countries are trained in international law. He was also awarded the United Nations Human Rights Prize in 1968 . In 1971 he became a corresponding member of the British Academy .

Cassin died in Paris in 1976, and in 1987 his remains were transferred to the Panthéon .

literature

Own title

  • André Chouraqui : La condition juridique de l'Israélite marocain Foreword RC - Ed. L'Alliance israélite Universelle. Paris 1950 (French)
  • ders .: L'Alliance Israelite Universelle et la Renaissance Juive Contemporaine 1860–1960 Vorw. RC, PUF , Paris 1965 (French)
  • Les hommes partis de rien. Le réveil de la France abbatue 1940–41 Plon, Paris 1975.
  • René Cassin et l'École nationale d'administration La Documentation française, Paris 2004 ISBN 2110056983 (French)
  • La Genèse de la Charte des droits de l'homme in: Zs. The Unesco courier. A window open on the world; Vol. XXI, 1, 1968; P. 4–6 (French; also available in English and Spanish) Similar, from 1951: see web links.
  • Science and human rights In: Zs. Impact of science on society. Volume XXII, 4, 1972; Pp. 329–339 (English; also available in French)
  • La Tradition libérale occidentale des droits de l'homme In: Zs. Human rights teaching. Volume IV, 1, 1985; P. 51-56 (also in English: The Liberal Western tradition of human rights. Round Table Meeting on Human Rights in Oxford, UK 1965 ) also online, see web links.

Secondary title

  • Bernhard Kupfer: Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2001.

Web links

Commons : René Cassin  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The mentioned UF was a French association of war victims, especially of veterans and bereaved relatives, which came more and more to pacifist positions, cf. Paul Distelbarth . The limits mentioned are to be understood both geographically and mentally. Original version: “C'est en 1921, au moment où la reconstruction intérieure absorbait tous les esprits, que l'Union fédérale, regardant hardiment au-delà des frontières, a envisagé dans son ensemble leproblemème de la paix et proclamé qu'en utilisant see victoire au profit de tous, la France servirait le mieux ses intérêts permanents, inséparables de la Paix (sic) ”. Source: Union Fédérale website
  2. ^ Mark Weston Janis, "Rene Cassin" in: David P. Forsythe (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Human Rights , Vol. 1 (Afghanistan-Democracy and Right to Participation), Oxford University Press, 2009.
  3. ↑ online
  4. ^ List of previous recipients. (PDF; 42 kB) United Nations Human Rights, April 2, 2008, accessed on December 29, 2008 (English).
  5. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 12, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Cassin, René
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cassin, René Samuel (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Bayonne , France
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 1976
Place of death Paris