Rolv Ryssdal* President, and the Former Vice-President, Hermann Mosler Council of Europe

section Some Notable People3 in the Court’s History CHAPTER 7 Presidents of the Court Lord (Arnold Duncan) McNair (1885–1975) British • Barrister, law professor and international judge • Judge (1946–52) and President of the International Court of Justice (1952–5) • President (1959–65) and thereafter judge at the Court (1965–6) Lord McNair served as the first President of the Court. He was educated at Aldenham School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he read law. From 1907 to 1908 he was Secretary of the Cambridge University Liberal Club, and in 1909 he was President of the Cambridge Union. After practising as a solicitor in London, he returned to Cambridge in 1912 to become a fellow of his old college, later becoming senior tutor. In 1917 he was called to the Bar, Gray’s Inn. He had taken an interest in international law from an early age, and in 1935 he was appointed Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge. However, he left this chair in 1937 to become Vice-Chancellor of Above: Lord (Arnold Duncan) McNair. Liverpool University. He remained at Liverpool until 1945, Opposite: Poster with some of the when he returned to Cambridge to take up the position of Convention’s keywords (2009). Professor of Comparative Law. The following year he was 106 The Conscience of Europe: 50 Years of the European Court of Human Rights Chapter 7: Presidents of the Court elected a judge of the International Court of Justice in The rights. He wanted above all to place human rights at the heart 1974 that France ratified the Convention, only two years Hague, a post he held until 1955, and he was also President of the European construction project then just beginning. He before Cassin’s death. To his great regret, he did not live of the Court from 1952 to 1955. took an active part in the drafting of the Convention for the long enough to see its acceptance of the right of individual As another great British judge, Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice, Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, petition, which did not come until 1981. put it in the obituary that was published in the British Year signed on 4 November 1950, which includes most of the Cassin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968 for the Book of International Law in 1975: rights set out in the Universal Declaration. whole of his work in the cause of fundamental human rights. Unlike the 1948 text, however, the European Convention No one understood better than he did that respect for human [Lord McNair made] a valuable contribution [as has more than just declaratory scope. Its drafters realized rights and peace are indissolubly linked, an idea he expressed President of the European Court] … setting that Court that human rights could be effectively protected only if in the following phrase: ‘There will be no peace on this planet on its path as a going concern; the system provided for they were given binding legal force and that it was essential for as long as human rights continue to be infringed in some under the European Convention, whereby the Court sits to set up a judicial system calculated to guarantee the corner of it.’ Those words remain as relevant now as they in Chambers, the members of which are drawn by lot effective application of Convention rights. Those were were then, as does René Cassin’s fight for human rights. for each separate case, had the effect that he was able the circumstances that led to the creation of the European Patrick Titiun to take virtually no direct part in the substantive, as Commission and European Court of Human Rights. Head of the Private Office of the President of the Court opposed to the administrative work of the Court. Cassin played a leading role within the Court, which Dean Spielmann was established in 1959. He was its first Vice-President, Judge at the Court from 1959 to 1965, and served as President from 1965 to Henri Rolin (1891–1973) 1968. He was thus the first French judge to preside over Belgian the Court, at a time when France was still refusing to ratify • Legal practitioner, politician, law professor and judge René Cassin (1887–1976) the Convention. During his time as a judge in Strasbourg, • Judge (1959–65 and 1971–3), Vice-President (1965–8) French he never ceased to campaign for France to impose on and President (1968–71) • Law professor and judge itself the universal rules that it had willed into being and • Vice-President of the Conseil d’Etat (1944–60) in which he had invested so much hope. It was not until Henri Rolin, Strasbourg’s first Belgian judge, succeeded René • Judge of the Constitutional Council (1960–71) Cassin as the third President of the Court. For various reasons • Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1968) he was unable to sit in the first three cases – includingDe Henri Rolin. • Vice-President (1959–65), President (1965–8) and thereafter Becker (1962) and the Belgian linguistic case (Case ‘relating judge at the Court (1968–76) to certain aspects of the laws on the use of languages in It is worth noting that after leading the Court to education in Belgium’, 1967 and 1968), both concerning his streamline its rules and organize its working methods René Cassin, that ‘foot-soldier in the cause of human rights’, native country – so his judicial career did not begin any more in 1969, Rolin was the first President to criticize the as he liked to call himself, waged a fierce battle for human auspiciously than that of ‘his’ first President. Indeed, it did unwieldiness and complexity of the Convention’s rights throughout his life on the international level. not start until November 1966, nearly eight years after he had supervisory machinery. Indeed, it was on his initiative and Immediately after the end of the war, as France’s been elected as a judge (and thus eight years after the Court under his presidency that in 1971 the Court instructed representative on the United Nations Human Rights was established), with the first German and Austrian cases … an initial working party to examine ways to simplify and Commission, he was the main promoter, together with Rolin had lived through the years when there were no streamline the procedure established by the Convention … Eleanor Roosevelt, of the Universal Declaration of Human cases, and although he was perhaps not the instigator of Rolin was not what one might describe as an easy man. Rights, a large part of which he drafted himself. He described the Court’s plans to denounce this state of affairs publicly, Realistic and visionary, upright and true to his beliefs, the Declaration as ‘the first document of an ethical nature he had been aware from the outset of the risks it entailed he defended his opinions resolutely, without fearing the adopted by organized humanity as a whole following a war for the existence of the system of protection afforded by accusation that his leadership of the Court was slightly the like of which had never been seen’. It was a considerable the Convention. His memorable lecture, ‘Has the European authoritarian. He was direct and often peremptory, step forward in the protection of fundamental rights, ‘a gleam Court of Human Rights a Future?’, which was published sometimes abrupt. In fact, he was the only one of ‘my’ of hope for humanity’, as he put it. However, its effectiveness in the spring of 1965, stands as proof of this. This lecture, Presidents I ever heard apologizing to one of his colleagues was limited by its lack of binding force. deriving its power and incisiveness from rhetoric and at a meeting for having bluntly criticized his position. The During the years following the adoption of the Universal expressive stylistic force, became a historic document on Court bore no resentment during these few delicate moments, Declaration, René Cassin, already considered one of the most which President Ryssdal later drew in his long-running knowing that its President was passionate and unconditional capable theoreticians of international law, again put himself campaign to replace the supervisory machinery set up under in his devotion to the common cause and his commitment at the service of the international legal community and human René Cassin. the 1950 Convention with a fully judicial system. to the Court itself. This commitment to the institution over 108 109 The Conscience of Europe: 50 Years of the European Court of Human Rights Chapter 7: Presidents of the Court which he presided earned him the respect – and affection became a judge at the International Court of Justice, of which characterized both by the unfailing courtesy he showed – of his colleagues because in 1949, as a member of the he was President from 1979 to 1981. He was for many years to all at all times and by astute powers of observation Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, he had editor of the British Year Book of International Law and concealed beneath a calm exterior. opposed the idea of a European Court of Human Rights, was a member (an associate in 1950, regular in 1961) of the Two personal reminiscences may not be out of place. which was only logical given his idea at that time of a Institute of International Law. First, Balladore Pallieri had the habit during the Court’s system for protecting human rights in Europe. Once Rolin During Sir Humphrey’s years at the Commission, afternoon deliberations (those were different times!) of was elected as a judge, and subsequently as Vice-President that institution was dealing above all with problems indulging in a large cigar.

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