Geneva Conventions (1864).The Geneva Convention of 22 August 1864 was the world's first multilateral humanitarian treaty. Sixteen nations were present, responding to public concern about the sufferings of sick and wounded soldiers, well publicized by the labors of Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, Clara Barton and the U.S. Sanitary Commission in the American Civil War, and the dramatic book The Memory of Solferino (1862) by Henry Dunant, a Swiss, about the casualties at the Battle of Solferino in 1859. Dunant and four other Genevan philanthropists had already launched, in October 1863, what would become the international Red Cross movement. Now the twelve initial signatories bound their armies to respect and protect the lives and workplaces of each other's ambulance and medical personnel; to incorporate volunteer auxiliaries into their medical corps; and to signify their virtual neutrality by a protective emblem, “a red cross on a white ground.” The United States acceded to the convention in 1882.

Its consequences were mixed. The popularity of national Red Cross societies actually facilitated social mobilization for war purposes. On the other hand, the convention set a valuable humanitarian precedent, of which the most obvious sequels were its successively extended versions of 1906, 1929, 1949, and 1977.
[See also Laws of War; Red Cross, American.]

Bibliography

Dietrich Schindler and Jiri Toman, eds., The Laws of Armed Conflicts: A Collection of Conventions, Resolutions and Other’ Documents, 1973; 2nd ed. 1981.
John F. Hutchinson , Champions of Charity: The Red Cross and the Great Powers, 1995.

Geoffrey Best