On this day in ...... 1906, a girl, named Suzanne, was born in Rennes, France. She would be the eldest of 7 children whose father was Jules Basdevant (below right), a French scholar and diplomat who from 1946 to 1964 would serve as a Judge on the the International Court of Justice -- President from 1949 to1952. (photo credit) His daughter likewise would become a leading legal scholar specializing in public international law, following in her father's footsteps. In 1932 she became the 1st woman to earn an agrégation de droit public. Following her marriage in the mid-1930s, Suzanne Bastid (above left) served as chef de cabinet for her husband, the French Minister of Commerce. (photo credit) When World War II came she went into exile, but then was repatriated and served in the Résistance. Bastid was the 1st woman to occupy a chair in a French law faculty, at Lyon in 1943 and at Paris in 1946. After the war she launched a 20-year career as a professor at the
Institut d'études politiques de Paris. Her many achievements included service on the French delegation to the United Nations, as well as the U.N. Administrative Tribunal, over which she presided from 1953 to 1963. She was the 1st vice president of the Institut de droit international, and was a commandeur of the Légion d'honneur. Bastid, who in 1984 became the 1st woman to receive the Manley O. Hudson Medal from the American Society of International Law, died on March 2, 1995.(Prior August 15 posts are here, here, and here.)
