René Cassin, the Holocaust, and the Universal Declaration for Human Rights

Event Information and Booking

27th June, 2013
6:30 pm - 12:00 am
Birkbeck, University of London, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX. Room B34, Torrington Square main entrance
Professor Jay Winter, Yale University
Holocaust Memory, Human Rights, Law, World War II
France, Global
20th century
René Cassin

Remembrance is not a human right but the precondition for the effective establishment and maintenance of a regime of human rights. In this lecture Professor Winter explores the central role played by Holocaust remembrance in the framing and passage of one of the foundational human rights documents of the twentieth century: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Jay Winter will focus on the role of the French jurist, resistance leader, and Jewish statesman, René Cassin, architect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968.

Jay M Winter is the Charles J Stille Professor of History at Yale University and is a specialist on World War I and its impact on the twentieth century. He is the author or co-author of a dozen books. His most recent, Rene Cassin et les droits de l’homme (Fayard, 2011), co-authored with Antoine Prost, won the prize for best book of the year at the Blois History festival in 2011. The book is now available in English, René Cassin and Human Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

There will be a book signing and wine reception after the event.

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