9781422285497

Red Cross volunteers in

Bangkok, Thailand, during government protests in 2013.

Another important attempt was the First Geneva Convention.Adopted in 1864 as part of the founding of the International Red Cross, this instrument defined legal and humane treatment for battlefield casualties in wartime. The convention was inspired by the memoirs of a Swiss businessman, Henri Dunant, who witnessed the sufferings of soldiers wounded during a battle in 1859 between French and Austrian armies and who wrote a book calling for the creation of a civilian relief agency to care for the wounded during wartime. In 1863, the Geneva Society for Public Welfare became aware of the issue and created a committee of five,eventually known as the International Committee of the Red Cross. On August 22, 1864, this committee convened

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Chapter One