- Person
- René Cassin
- Lived
- 1887–1976
- Field
- Human rights law
- From
- French
The story
When France was liberated in 1944, the Republic had to be rebuilt after four years of occupation and the Vichy regime. René Cassin, a law professor who had been the chief legal adviser of de Gaulle's Free French movement in London, was one of the people entrusted with that task. From August 1943 he had presided over the Free French legal committee that acted as a Council of State in exile, and he continued in that role in the Provisional Government of the French Republic.
At the liberation he became vice-president of the Council of State, the body with final jurisdiction over administrative law in France, a post he held from 1944 until June 1960, after which he was named honorary president. In that role Cassin helped restore the rule of law to French public administration.
He also shaped how France trained its public servants. From 1946 he chaired the board of the new École nationale d'administration for sixteen years, insisting on demanding standards of service to the nation. In 1947 he became a member of the Institut de France, and he later served as president of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.
In 1958, when France adopted a new constitution, Cassin chaired the provisional advisory committee that prepared the Constitution of the Fifth Republic. In January 1959, as vice-president of the Council of State, he received at the Élysée Palace the oath of General de Gaulle as President of the Republic. He played an essential part in creating the Constitutional Council, the body that rules on whether laws passed by Parliament conform to the constitution, and he sat on it from 1960 to 1971. At the same time he served as president of the Court of Arbitration at The Hague from 1950 to 1960 and as a judge and then president of the European Court of Human Rights.
The institutions he helped build still govern France. The Constitution of the Fifth Republic remains in force, the Constitutional Council still rules on whether laws respect it, and the Council of State remains the highest authority on administrative law.
Why it matters
Cassin's work rebuilt the rule of law in post-war France and helped design the constitutional institutions that still govern the country.
About René Cassin
French-Jewish jurist, war-wounded veteran and Free French lawyer who was a principal drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Nobel Peace Prize 1968.
More about René Cassin
- René Cassin used his Nobel money for human rightsRené Cassin used the money from his 1968 Nobel Peace Prize to found the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg in 1969.
- René Cassin helped write the Declaration of Human RightsFrench jurist René Cassin was a principal drafter of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, later presided over the European Court of Human Rights and won the 1968 Nobel Peace Prize.
- René Cassin worked to protect France's war orphansRené Cassin served as vice-president of France's High Council for Wards of the Nation, which looked after children orphaned by the First World War.
- René Cassin won laws to help disabled veteransBadly wounded in the First World War, René Cassin drafted and won passage of French laws to help war victims find work, and in 1930 secured the law on the combatant’s pension.
Sources
- René Cassin Ordre de la Libération
- René Cassin Les Chemins de la Mémoire, French Ministry of the Armed Forces
- René Cassin: Biographical NobelPrize.org
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.