- Person
- René Cassin
- Lived
- 1887–1976
- Field
- Human rights law
- From
- French
The story
René Cassin received the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1968, at the age of 81. The award recognised a lifetime of work for human rights: he had been the person most responsible for the draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, and he had served as a judge and then, from 1965 to 1968, as president of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. 1968 was also the twentieth anniversary of the Declaration, marked as International Human Rights Year.
Cassin had long believed that peace and human rights were inseparable. In his own words, there would be no peace on the planet as long as human rights were violated in any part of the world. In an article for the anniversary year, he wrote that now the world had an instrument capable of lifting or easing the burden of oppression and injustice, it had to learn to use it.
Rather than keep the prize money, he put it to work for that belief. In 1969 he used it to found the International Institute of Human Rights, the Institut international des droits de l'homme, in Strasbourg. The city was a natural home, as the seat of the European Court of Human Rights, the court he had led. The institute was devoted to teaching and research in human rights law.
The institute he founded is still active. It has around 300 individual and institutional members worldwide, including universities, researchers and human rights practitioners. It is a recognised partner of the United Nations, with consultative status at the UN Economic and Social Council and at UNESCO, and it works with the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the African Union. Since 2011 its president has been Jean-Paul Costa.
The Nobel Committee's biography described Cassin as one of the world's foremost champions of both the legal and the moral recognition of human rights. By founding a permanent institute rather than a one-off project, he made sure that teaching and research on human rights would continue long after his own career ended, carrying his work into new generations.
Why it matters
The institute Cassin founded with his prize money has carried his mission of human rights education forward for decades.
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 helped rebuild French law after liberationRené Cassin was vice-president of France's Council of State from 1944 to 1960, chaired the committee preparing the 1958 constitution and sat on the Constitutional Council.
- 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 Les Chemins de la Mémoire, French Ministry of the Armed Forces
- René Cassin Ordre de la Libération
- René Cassin: Biographical NobelPrize.org
- International Institute of Human Rights Wikipedia
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.