Cassin, René Samuel

(1887–1976)

   French jurist and Nobel laureate, 1968. Before World War II, Cassin was a jurist of international standing, holding a professorship at the University of Paris, and acting as a legal expert at the League of Nations. He was also the president of the organization of French war veterans. During the war, he joined General de Gaulle in London as a legal adviser, and broadcast regularly on the BBC to occupied France. In post-war France, he held a number of distinguished juridical and intellectual appointments. At the United Nations he was the chief draftsman of the Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, and served as president of the European Court of Human Rights. In 1968 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

   During the German occupation of France, a number of members of Cassin’s family were murdered by the Nazis. In 1943, he took charge, with De Gaulle’s approval, of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and played an important part in rehabilitating the Jewish communities in France and North Africa. He was honorary president of the World Sephardi Federation.