Paul Grossrieder was Director General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), from  1996 to 2002. Before joining the ICRC in 1983 for a first mission in Iraq, he was a representative of the  Dominican order from 1964 to 1983. During that time, in 1975, he was appointed expert in international  relations at the Vatican and representative of the Holy See at the Conference on Security and Cooperation  in Europe (CSCE), a landmark multilateral forum established during the Cold War to ease East-West  tensions and foster cooperation. Today, the forum exists under the name of Organization for Security  and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).