René Cassin, France (1887-1976)
Jurist and French statesman, born in Bayonne, France. During World War II he joined Charles de Gaulle in London. He was the chief legal adviser in negotiations with the British government, and held important posts in the French government in exile in London and Algiers. Later he became Council of State (of which he was President, 1944-60) in liberated France. After the war he was increasingly concerned with the safeguarding of human rights, and played a leading part in the establishment of UNESCO.
Principal author of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man (1948), he later became a member of the European Court of Human Rights (1959) and was its President 1965-1968. In 1968 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.