First Geneva Convention part of Geneva Conventions
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), while recognising that it is "primarily the duty and responsibility of a nation to safeguard the health and physical well-being of its own people", knew there would always, especially in times of war, be a "need for voluntary agencies to supplement…the official agencies charged with these responsibilities in every country." To ensure that its mission was widely accepted, it required a body of rules to govern its own activities and those of the involved belligerent parties.
Only one year later, the Swiss government invited the governments of all European countries, as well as the United States, Brazil, and Mexico, to attend an official diplomatic conference. Sixteen countries sent a total of twenty-six delegates to Geneva. The meeting was presided over by General Guillaume Henri Dufour. The conference took place in the Alabama room at Geneva's Hotel de Ville (city hall) on 22 August 1864. The conference adopted the first Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field". Representatives of 12 states signed the convention:
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