The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 16 million volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering.
Henry Dunant, also known as Henri Dunant, was a Swiss humanitarian, businessman, social activist, and co-founder of the Red Cross. His humanitarian efforts won him the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.
Clarissa Harlowe Barton was an American nurse who founded the American Red Cross. She was a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, a teacher, and a patent clerk. Since nursing education was not then very formalized and she did not attend nursing school, she provided self-taught nursing care. Barton is noteworthy for doing humanitarian work and civil rights advocacy at a time before women had the right to vote. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1973.
The Battle of Solferino on 24 June 1859 resulted in the victory of the allied French army under Napoleon III and the Piedmont-Sardinian army under Victor Emmanuel II against the Austrian army under Emperor Franz Joseph I. It was the last major battle in world history where all the armies were under the personal command of their monarchs. Perhaps 300,000 soldiers fought in the important battle, the largest since the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. There were about 130,000 Austrian troops and a combined total of 140,000 French and allied Piedmontese troops. After the battle, the Austrian emperor refrained from further direct command of the army.
The First Geneva Convention, officially the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field, held on 22 August 1864, is the first of four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It defines "the basis on which rest the rules of international law for the protection of the victims of armed conflicts."
Solferino is a small town and municipality in the province of Mantua, Lombardy, northern Italy, approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of Lake Garda.
Guillaume Henri Dufour was a Swiss military officer, structural engineer and topographer. He served under Napoleon I and held the Swiss office of General four times in his career, firstly in 1847 when he led the Swiss Confederation forces to victory against the Sonderbund. In 1864 Dufour presided over the First Geneva Convention which established the International Red Cross. He was founder and president of the Swiss Federal Office of Topography.
Marcel Junod was a Swiss medical doctor and one of the most accomplished field delegates in the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). After medical school and a short position as a surgeon in Mulhouse, France, he became an ICRC delegate and was deployed in Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and in Europe as well as in Japan during World War II. In 1947, he wrote a book with the title Warrior without Weapons about his experiences. After the war, he worked for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as chief representative in China, and settled back in Europe in 1950. He founded the anaesthesiology department of the Cantonal Hospital in Geneva and became the first professor in this discipline at the University of Geneva. In 1952, he was appointed a member of the ICRC and, after many more missions for this institution, was Vice-President from 1959 until his death in 1961.
Gustave Moynier was a Swiss jurist who was active in many charitable organizations in Geneva.
Under the Geneva Conventions, the emblems of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement are to be worn by all medical and humanitarian personnel and also displayed on their vehicles and buildings while they are in an active warzone, and all military forces operating in an active warzone must not attack entities displaying these emblems. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement recognizes four protection emblems, three of which are in use: the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, the Red Lion and Sun, and the Red Crystal.
Dr. Théodore Maunoir was a Swiss surgeon and co-founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and promoting humanitarian norms.
Alexandre Hay was a Swiss lawyer. From 1966 to 1976 he was Vice President of the Board of the Swiss National Bank. Later, from 1976 to 1987 he was President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term Geneva Convention colloquially denotes the agreements of 1949, negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–1945), which updated the terms of the two 1929 treaties and added two new conventions. The Geneva Conventions extensively define the basic rights of wartime prisoners, civilians and military personnel; establish protections for the wounded and sick; and provide protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone.
Jean Simon Pictet was a Swiss citizen, jurist, legal practitioner working in international humanitarian law. First as a secretary-jurist, and then as a senior executive and Vice-President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Pictet was instrumental in drafting the 1949 Geneva Conventions for the protection of victims of war, their Commentaries, and negotiating the 1977 Additional Protocols. He also proposed the Red Cross Movement’s seven Fundamental Principles, which were adopted at Vienna in 1965: Humanity, Impartiality, Neutrality, Independence, Voluntary Service, Unity and Universality. In 1989, an international humanitarian law competition for students was founded and named after him.
A Memory of Solferino is a book of the Swiss humanitarian Henry Dunant published in 1862. It proved decisive in the founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Marguerite "Meggy"Frick-Cramer, born Renée-Marguerite Cramer, was a Swiss legal scholar, historian, and humanitarian activist. She was the first woman to sit on the governing body of an international organization, when she was made a member of the board of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1918.
Johan Hendrik Christiaan Basting was a Dutch army surgeon and friend of Red Cross founder Henri Dunant. He played an important role during the establishment in 1863 of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and from that year on he was an advocate for the establishment of a national voluntary aid organization in the Netherlands, the Netherlands Red Cross established in 1867.
The archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are based in Geneva and were founded in 1863 at the time of the ICRC's inception. It has the dual function to manage both current records and historical archives. The general historical archives are openly accessible to the general public up to 1975.
The library of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – in French: la bibliothèque du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge (CICR) – is a public library based at the headquarter of the international organization in Geneva, Switzerland. It was apparently founded around the time of the ICRC's inception in 1863.
