The foundations of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and particularly the ICRC's humanitarian protection, are to be found in Calvinistic Geneva in the nineteenth century. What became the ICRC got its start between 1859 and 1869. Decisions during this time greatly shaped not just the ICRC and the larger Red Cross Movement, but the entire “Red Cross” approach to peace and war, to public authorities, and to scope and styles of Red Cross humanitarian action. Thereafter the ICRC remained enormously influential on these subjects.

It is a very complicated matter as to whether victims of war and victims of other struggles for power would have fared better in subsequent years through different decisions. What is clear is that the ICRC emerged as an important humanitarian actor in conflict situations and as “guardian” of a much revered – and much violated – international humanitarian law (IHL). The organization's provision of humanitarian relief, its visits to detainees, its efforts to restore family contacts, and its legal development work became fixtures of “man made” conflicts – first in Europe and then in the rest of the world.