Originally published in French by Fayard, 2011. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Family and education, 1887-1914 -- The Great War and its aftermath -- Cassin in Geneva -- From nightmare to reality, 1936-1940 -- Free France, 1940-1941 -- World War, 1941-1943 -- Restoring the republican legal order : the "comitâe juridique" -- Freeze frame : Renâe Cassin in 1944 -- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights : origins and echoes -- The vice-president of the Conseil d'Etat, 1944-1960 -- A Jewish life.
Summary:
"Through the life of one extraordinary man, this biography reveals what the term human rights meant to the men and women who endured two world wars, and how this major political and intellectual movement ultimately inspired and enshrined the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. René Cassin was a man of his generation, committed to moving from war to peace through international law, and whose work won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968. His life crossed all the major events of the first 70 years of the twentieth century, and illustrates the hopes, aspirations, failures, and achievements of an entire generation. It shows how today's human rights regimes emerged from the First World War as a pacifist response to that catastrophe and how, after 1945, human rights became a way to go beyond the dangers of absolute state sovereignty, helping to create today's European project"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.