The Geneva Conventions

The Red Cross, like its founder Henry Dunant, has remained the driving force behind improving the lot of war victims all these years. New violations, new methods and means of warfare, later called for additions and new rules.... The First Convention was soon supplemented by the Second Geneva Convention offering protection to the sick, wounded and shipwrecked of war at sea.

By World War I, a Third Convention on the Protection and Treatment of Prisoners of War is drawn up in 1929. The need to protect civilian populations becomes clear after the Holocaust and the massive bombing of cities in World War II. This leads to the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949.

Today, the Conventions are recognized by virtually every country in the world. The four Geneva Conventions still form the basis of International Humanitarian Law.