with Professor Philippe Sands QC and Adam Wagner
Monday 10 December 2018, 7pm
Jewish Museum, Raymond Burton House, 129-131 Albert Street, London NW1 7NB
*** this event was recorded ***
the audio is available on the Jewish Museum website, via the links below:
Podcast – Jewish Human Rights Heroes – Part 1
Podcast – Jewish Human Rights Heroes – Part 2
A René Cassin event, in partnership with the Jewish Museum
Tickets £6.50/£8.50 – for more information and to book your place, visit the Jewish Museum website
Monsieur René Cassin, Philippe Sands, Adam Wagner
This December we mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is a time for celebration, but also for remembrance.
This evening celebrates and remembers the Jewish Human Rights heroes behind the UDHR and the development of international human rights
- René Cassin co-authored the UDHR
- Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide and was the moving force behind the Genocide Convention
- Hersch Lauterpacht brought crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression into modern international law, via the Nuremberg Charter.
Speakers
Philippe Sands QC, barrister and award-winning author of ‘East West Street’, and Human Rights Barrister and blogger Adam Wagner, will contextualise the achievements of these human rights heroes, bringing the story up to the modern day.
Read more about Rene Cassin and the UDHR
Today, 10th December, is International Human Rights Day – the 76th anniversary of the signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
The Declaration was a reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust. So, for Jews, today has a particuar significance.
Although rooted in response to atrocity, the Declaration was forward-looking and optimistic. It spoke for the majority of people who knew a better world was possible. The fact that it’s co-author , the French-Jewish lawyer Monsieur Rene Cassin, could draft such a hopeful document so soon after 26 members of his family were murdered by the Nazis is a testament to his humanity and the power of human rights in general.
Today, as the organisation that works in Cassin’s name, we are determined to ensure his Declaration’s vision of human rights for all is fully realised. Central to that work is a focus on so called ‘socio-economic rights’ – rights to everyday essentials like food, housing and health. This vision was best articulated in Article 25 of the Declaration:
‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control’.
Bolstering these rights would ensure everybody has access to the foundations on which to build a dignified, prosperous and meaningful life. They have been neglected for too long.
