The Geneva Conventions (1949)

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The Geneva Conventions (1949)

Free Resource · Founding Document · Adopted August 12, 1949

The four treaties that form the core of modern international humanitarian law

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For the complete official texts, see the ICRC’s treaty database: The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols, ICRC.

Adopted in Geneva on August 12, 1949, the four Geneva Conventions are the core of modern international humanitarian law — the rules that apply once a war has started, regardless of why it was fought. They are among the most widely accepted treaties in the world: 196 states, essentially every recognized country, are party to all four.

The four conventions

First Convention — protects wounded and sick members of armed forces on land.
Second Convention — protects wounded, sick, and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea.
Third Convention — governs the treatment of prisoners of war, including humane treatment, protection from violence and public curiosity, and the right to communicate with family.
Fourth Convention — protects civilians, including in occupied territory, from murder, torture, collective punishment, and deportation.

Common Article 3

A single article, repeated word-for-word in all four conventions, that applies even to conflicts not between states — civil wars and internal armed conflicts. It requires humane treatment for all who are not, or are no longer, taking part in hostilities (including surrendered or wounded combatants), and absolutely prohibits violence to life and person, taking of hostages, humiliating treatment, and conviction or execution without a fair trial by a regularly constituted court.

Building on earlier conventions

The 1949 conventions consolidated and expanded protections first established in 1864 (the original Geneva Convention, prompted by Henry Dunant’s account of the Battle of Solferino), 1906, and 1929, and were later supplemented by three Additional Protocols (1977, 1977, and 2005) extending protections to non-international conflicts and adding the Red Crystal as a third protective emblem alongside the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), itself founded as a direct result of the original 1864 convention, serves as the conventions’ guardian and the primary neutral intermediary for prisoner visits, family tracing, and monitoring compliance in armed conflicts worldwide.

Primary source: Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, International Committee of the Red Cross.