René Cassin

René Cassin (1887-1976) was one of the principal drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He was Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the UN Commission for Human Rights from 1946 to 1959, President of the Court of Arbitration at The Hague from 1950 to 1960 and President of the European Court for Human Rights 1965 to 1968. He was also a Nobel Peace Prize Winner in 1968.

René Cassin (second from left) in discussion with Eleanor Roosevelt (second from right), Chairperson of the UN Commission for Human Rights, and Charles Malik, Rapporteur for the UN Commission for Human Rights and first President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

René Cassin was born in Bayonne in the South of France. After having become a lawyer and then Professor of Law at the University of Aix-en-Provence and then the University of Paris, he was  a French delegate to the League of Nations from 1924 to 1938. Here he pressed for progress on disarmament and developing institutions to aid the resolution of international conflicts.

Rene Cassin persistently worked on the development of international human rights protection, urging the creation of an international court to punish war crimes in 1942. He was a delegate to the United Nations Commission on Inquiry into War Crimes (1943-1945) and frequently served as a delegate for the French Government to the UN General Assembly and UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

In 1945 René Cassin helped found the Consultative Council of Jewish Organisations (CCJO), dedicated to providing encouragement from a Jewish perspective to the nascent UN human rights system.