René Cassin

René Cassin was born in Bayonne, France, and won the 1968 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After being wounded during his service as a soldier in World War I, he founded the leftist Union fédérale, France’s largest veterans’ organization. Besides his renown as a legal scholar and humanitarian, Cassin held many influential political positions, including as a French delegate to the League of Nations, a member of General de Gaulle’s government in exile, and as president of the European Court of Human Rights.