Announcement of the Accordance of the Personal Rank of Ambassador to George H. Aldrich While Serving as Head of the U.S. Delegation to the Conference on International Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts

The President today announced that George H. Aldrich will be accorded the personal rank of Ambassador while serving as head of the U.S. delegation to the Fourth Session of the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts. The conference is scheduled to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, from March 17 through June 10, 1977.

Aldrich is currently a deputy legal adviser of the Department of State. From 1965 to 1969, he was assistant legal adviser for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the State Department, and from 1963 to 1965 he was. legal adviser to the U.S. delegation to the North Atlantic Council in Paris.

Aldrich was chairman of the U.S. delegation to the 1971 and 1972 Geneva Conferences of Government Experts on International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts and to the 1974, 1975, and 1976 Diplomatic Conferences on the same subject.

Aldrich was legal adviser to Dr. Henry Kissinger for the Vietnam negotiations in Paris in 1972 and 1973, and principal crafter of the protocols to the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring the Peace in Vietnam.

He was also head of the U.S. delegation to the Conference of Government Experts on Possible Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons in Lugano, Switzerland, in 1976.