In compliance with Decision I of the Council of Delegates in October 1983, the Second World Red Cross and Red Crescent Conference on Peace met at Aaland, Finland, and Stockholm, Sweden, from 2 to 7 September 1984 at the invitation of the National Red Cross Societies of Finland and Sweden, in extraordinary session of the Council of Delegates.

As we get down to the work of this Conference, I would like to say how grateful the International Committee of the Red Cross is for the opportunity of sharing with the whole Red Cross and Red Crescent movement a few general thoughts on the theme of peace and more particularly on the contribution to peace which may be expected of the ICRC.

Since its inception and by its very existence our Movement has striven to contribute to peace in the world.

For over 120 years, it has sincerely attempted to limit by its action and through the provisions of humanitarian law, the horrors of war, from which it was created. In fact, what it does, in time of peace as in time of war, helps—directly or indirectly—to defuse the causes of conflicts and thereby contributes to the dynamic process that leads to true peace.

The Second World Red Cross and Red Crescent Conference on Peace, held in Aaland and Stockholm from 2nd to 7th September 1984, addressed the following message to the peoples and governments of the world:

With 120 years experience in the protection and assistance of victims of armed conflicts, natural disasters and other calamities the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement reaffirms that its own contribution to a true peace is expressed in its motto, “Through Humanity to Peace”.

On 2 September 1984, Mr. Jean Pictet celebrated his seventieth birthday; his family, friends and colleagues congratulated him and conveyed their good wishes.

Mr. Pictet joined the ICRC as legal secretary in 1937. He was later appointed Director, then Director-General; he became a member of the International Committee in 1967 and a Vice-President in 1971. Having reached retirement age, he stepped down in 1979 after 42 years of service, but remained a member of the Assembly.

The opening ceremony for the new building of the Central Tracing Agency took place at the ICRC on 29 October 1984. During the inauguration about one hundred guests were addressed by Mr. Pierre Aubert, Federal Councillor and head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Jacques Vernet, Vice-president of the State Council of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, Professor Jean-Werner Huber, Director of the Federal Buildings Office, and Mr. Alexandre Hay, President of the ICRC.

It was with great sorrow that the ICRC heard of the sudden demise on 10 November 1984, after nearly forty years of service, of their faithful collaborator Mr. Claude Pilloud.

A law graduate and a barrister, Claude Pilloud made his debut as a delegate in France in June 1940, only a few months after the start of the Second World War. In 1943, he was the ICRC escort on a hospital train in an operation for the exchange of severely wounded Italian and British soldiers between Rome and Lisbon. From January to June 1945, he successfully discharged a delicate negotiation concerning the German armed forces surrounded at Saint-Nazaire and Lorient, in the north of France.

The Republic of Seychelles deposited with the Swiss Government, on 8 November 1984, its instruments of accession to the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and to the Additional Protocols I and II adopted on 8 June 1977. These treaties will enter into force for the Republic of Seychelles on 8 May 1985.

On 12 March 1984 the Republic of South Africa, a State party to the Geneva Conventions, deposited with the Swiss Government the following communication dated 24 February 1984:

Accession to the aforementioned Geneva Conventions and Protocols is governed by an identically worded article which stipulates that “From the date of its coming into force, it shall be open to any Power in whose name the present Convention has not been signed, to accede to this Convention”.

From 5 to 11 September, Mr. Jean-Marc Bornet, the ICRC delegate-general for Africa carried out a mission to Kenya. He had discussions in Nairobi with the heads of the ICRC delegations in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, the Sudan, and Uganda, in order to set the objectives of ICRC activities in the countries of the Horn of Africa for 1985.