René Cassin, the Man of Human Rights

René Cassin, professor of law at the Sorbonne, was the first important civilian to join General de Gaulle in London, as early as 29 June 1940. René Cassin, with his round hat, his frock coat, and his striped trousers, thus found himself mingled with a few Breton fishermen, with adventurers eager to keep tangling with the Germans, a few lost officers. No elites. No ministers or former ministers, no great intellectuals (with the exception of Raymond Aron, who nevertheless did not immediately place himself at the disposal of the rebel general), no great economic operators, no academicians, no prelates of the Churches.

The role of René Cassin in the organization of la France combattante (Fighting France) is well known and is part of the history of France. It is less well known that, a Provençal Jew born in Bayonne to an Alsatian mother and a Nice-born father, he must have felt quite alone among his own in London¹.

Little by little, among the Free French, the stages of the solution finale (Final Solution) being implemented on French soil grew more distinct. From that time there germinated in René Cassin’s mind the central idea of an international justice imposing itself on all and, if necessary, beyond the authority of states. A premise for the creation of the Nuremberg tribunal? Certainly; but perhaps something more. The professor of law was in reality aiming at a world organization, guarantor of an international order founded on human rights… a “league of nations” endowed with the power to intervene and capable of enforcing the decisions of the international community.

De Gaulle, in the aftermath of the war, did not make René Cassin a political actor in the renewal of France. He let him (intuition or distrust?) pursue his path as a visionary of liberties.

The first stone of the construction obviously consisted in giving an internationally accepted definition of human rights. This was not the easiest phase, even though it appeared theoretical (and therefore not very alarming to the dictatorships that were still numerous on the planet). Thus was born, on 10 December 1948, the Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme (Universal Declaration of Human Rights), conceived and in large part drafted by the former Free Frenchman — a true charter written on the model of the 1789 declaration (to which had been added social rights and rights of solidarity), in the likeness, according to René Cassin, of the biblical Decalogue.

The second stage consisted in having the UN vote, in the midst of the Cold War, on binding texts imposing an international protection of individuals, superior to the authority of states. In other words, it was a matter of putting an end to the sacrosanct principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states. The success was all the easier because many of the totalitarian regimes had hastened to ratify this text — not, of course, in order to respect it, but in order to be able to reproach the Western democracies with violating it very often. Even so, even Brezhnev’s USSR was theoretically bound to respect certain principles: the worm was in the fruit.

The culmination of René Cassin’s political philosophy remains to be accomplished, and one cannot deny the responsibility of the Jewish communities — in particular the French one, and most especially the Alliance israélite universelle (which René Cassin presided over for thirty-three years) — in the acceptance by the nations of the idea of an International Criminal Court charged with judging not states but the individuals guilty of the great crimes: genocides, crimes against humanity, war crimes.

The annexation of Kuwait by Iraq and the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia gave rise to interventions in the direction of the principle of humanitarian interference. To be sure, not everything was perfect, and many criticisms may be formulated regarding the modalities of international action; but here again the theory of interference is on the way to being recognized as the normal response to the abuses committed by states in whose service great criminals are to be found.

Just as personalities belonging to Protestant circles founded the Red Cross, just as the successive heads of the Catholic Church gradually gave human rights the place that was their due in religious thought, it would be fitting today for there to rise up, within Judaism — French Judaism in particular — clerics and religious figures borne by the idea that the final word of beliefs consists in the protection of the individual human being and of the liberties to which he has a right. This is a call.

Gérard Israël, author of René Cassin, Desclée de Brouwer Éditeur, Paris 1990; former collaborator of René Cassin at the Alliance israélite universelle.

Notes