René Cassin's family lived in Nice, 10 rue de l'Hotel des Postes. his parents had a trade of wine on the boulevard Stalingrad, called le Chais Lympia. He was born in a jewish family. His father was already born in Nice just before the city became French.
He studied in the lycée Masséna (highschool) which he entered in 1901. Then he left Nice to study law in the Aix en Provence university. Doctorate, then war as a private. He was severely wounded in the beginning of WWI.
He became then the representative of France at the Society of Nations, forerunner of UNO.
5 days after the speech of de Gaulle on the BBC, on the 18th of June, 1940, he went to London to keep fighting on, after Petain, head of the French government, had called to a cease fire with the nazis. He was appointed a member of the Free French government by de Gaulle.
After the war, he was a member of the highest French courts : the Conseil d'Etat, the Conseil constitutionnel (he was its president).
He was the main redactor of the Universal declaration for human rights in 1948 and one of the founder of Unesco.
In 1968, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
When he came back to Nice, he lived 8 rue Maréchal Joffre.
He died in 1976 and he was transferred to the Panthéon 11 years later.