Pierre Boissier

Pierre Boissier (born December 12, 1920 in Chambésy near Geneva ; † April 26, 1974 in Geneva) was a Swiss lawyer . He completed several missions abroad for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as a delegate in various international conflicts. He was also the author or editor of several books on the history of the ICRC.

Life

Pierre Boissier was born in Chambésy in the Swiss canton of Geneva in 1920 . After completing his law studies at the University of Geneva , he became a delegate to the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1946. His first assignments took him to France . Here he headed a delegation in the period after the Second World War that monitored the treatment of German prisoners of war who were charged with war crimes . From 1952 to 1963 he worked on a book on the history of the ICRC, which first appeared in 1963 and covered the period from the Battle of Solferino in 1859 and the founding of the ICRC in 1863 to the beginning of the First World War . It was later supplemented by André Durand with a second volume covering the period up to the end of the Second World War, and in 2007 a third volume was published by Catherine Rey-Schyrr for the period from 1945 to 1955.

From February 1961 to October 1962 was Pierre Boissier Head of the ICRC delegation in the Algerian war , the conflict between France and Algerian independence movement. He then worked as a legal advisor in the ICRC General Affairs Department. In 1965 he became director of the Henry Dunant Institute , which was founded in the same year as a research, information and training center by the ICRC, the League of Red Cross Societies and the Swiss Red Cross (SRC). In the following years he completed other missions abroad for the ICRC in Cyprus , Israel , Jordan , Lebanon and in 1971 as a leading delegate in the conflict between India and Pakistan . In 1973, Pierre Boissier was co-opted as a member of the ICRC .

Pierre Boissier was married and had a son and a daughter. He was killed in an accident in April 1974 as part of a civil defense exercise .

Works (selection)

• L'Épée et la Balance. The repression of the crimes de guerre. Editions Labor et Fidès, Geneva 1953; German edition: International law and military orders. A contribution to the question of the prevention and punishment of war crimes. KF Koehler Verlag, Stuttgart 1953
• Histoire du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge. De Solférino à Tsoushima. Plon, Paris 1963; English edition: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Volume I: From Solferino to Tsushima. Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva 1985, ISBN 2-88044-012-2
• Henry Dunant. Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva 1974, reprint 1985

literature

• Boissier, Pierre. In: 1975 Britannica Book of the Year. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., Chicago 1975, ISBN 0-85229-303-8 , p. 524
• Death of Mr. Pierre Boissier, Member of the ICRC. In: International Review of the Red Cross. 14/1974. Cambridge University Press, pp. 262/263, ISSN  0020-8604

Web links

• Pierre Boissier in the database Dodis the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland