The first Red Cross Societies are organized in in 1864 as the result of Jean Henri Dunant’s humanitarian appeal to the world in 1859.

The Swiss government had invited the governments of all European countries, as well as the United States, Brazil, and Mexico, to attend an official diplomatic conference.

Sixteen countries send a total of twenty-six delegates to Geneva.

On August 22, 1864, the conference adopts the first Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field".

Representatives of twelve states and kingdoms sign the convention: Baden, Belgium, Denmark, France, Hesse, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Switzerland, Spain, and Württemberg.

The convention contains ten articles, establishing for the first time legally binding rules guaranteeing neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers, field medical personnel, and specific humanitarian institutions in an armed conflict.

Furthermore, the convention defines two specific requirements for recognition of a national relief society by the International Committee: The national society must be recognized by its own national government as a relief society according to the convention, The national government of the respective country must be a state party to the Geneva Convention.

Directly following the establishment of the Geneva Convention, the first national societies will be founded in Belgium, Denmark, France, Oldenburg, Prussia, Spain, and Württemberg.

Also in 1864, Louis Appia and Charles van de Velde, a captain of the Dutch Army, will become the first independent and neutral delegates to work under the symbol of the Red Cross in an armed conflict.