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The 1864 agreement signed by the 12 European nations provided that, during future wars in which they were engaged, they would care for all sick and wounded military personnel, regardless of nationality. It was titled the Geneva Convention.

From a modest beginning there has been a series of international conferences to extend and develop International Humanitarian Law. The most important was the Geneva conference of 1949 which resulted in the revision of the first three Geneva Conventions and the adoption of a fourth convention:

1. Protection of the wounded and sick in armed forces in the field;
2. Protection of the wounded, sick and shipwrecked armed forces at sea.
3. Protection of prisoners of war.
4. Protection of civilians in times of war.
These have been ratified, or agreed to, by 190 nations and are legally binding upon their defence force personnel.

In 1977, at another Geneva conference, two additional Protocols were finalised and have since been adopted by over half the countries in the world. They extended the provisions of the four Conventions and introduced new principles of protection in the case of international and non-international (i.e. internal) armed conflicts.