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Rene Cassin

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The Resume

    (October 5, 1897-February 20, 1976)
    Born in Bayonne, France
    French jurist
    French delegate to the League of Nations (1924-38)
    French delegate to UNESCO (1945-65)
    Co-author with Eleanor Roosevelt of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
    Member of the committee that drafted the Constitution of France’s Fifth Republic (1958)
    Presided over the European Court of Human Rights (1965-68)
    Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1968)

Why he might be annoying:

    One biography noted, ‘His rare forays into politics were not particularly successful.’
    He failed to speak out about human rights abuses committed by the French army in Algeria.
    When told he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, his first reaction was concern that the presentation ceremony in Oslo conflicted with a human rights conference in New York City he had promised to attend.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was married to his first wife, Simone Yzombard, for 52 years.
    During World War I, he was wounded in the arm, side and stomach by machine gun fire and received the Croix de Guerre.
    During World War II, he helped Charles de Gaulle draft the legal documents for the Free French government in exile.
    His sister Yvonne was deported from France and killed in a Nazi concentration camp.
    He said, ‘We know that building for the future is a very difficult thing to do. We cannot hope to complete the work in one generation – all the more reason to begin at once.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 9 Votes: 11.11% Annoying