The Competition
Jean Pictet (1914–2002)
A Swiss jurist and vice-president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jean Pictet is one of the principal architects of modern international humanitarian law. In 1989 he agreed to give his name to the Competition — a patronage he honoured until his death.
A career at the ICRC.
Jean Pictet joined the ICRC in 1937 as a secretary-jurist. The war quickly made him one of the institution’s senior officers and the close collaborator of its president, Max Huber. He was appointed Director in 1946, then Director General in 1966; he sat on the Executive Committee from 1967 to 1979 and served as Vice-President of the ICRC from 1971 to 1979.
The Conventions, the Principles, the Commentaries.
He was one of the principal architects of the four 1949 Geneva Conventions, whose preparatory work he led, and then general editor of the four-volume Commentary that set their reading for the decades that followed. He went on to take part in drafting the 1977 Additional Protocols.
He is also the author of the formulation of the Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent — humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, universality — adopted as the Movement’s charter in 1965.
Teaching.
Jean Pictet taught at the University of Geneva, at the Hague Academy of International Law and at the International Institute of Human Rights. He was Director and then President of the Henry-Dunant Institute.
It is that part of his work — passing humanitarian law on, rather than only writing it — that the Competition set out to continue when it asked for his name.