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List of parties to the Geneva Conventions

countries that have ratified aspects of the Geneva Conventions

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ3558905 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Geneva Conventions, which were most recently revised in 1949, consist of seven individual treaties which are open to ratification or accession by any sovereign state. They are:

The Geneva Conventions

First Geneva Convention

Second Geneva Convention

Third Geneva Convention

Fourth Geneva Convention

Additional Protocols

Protocol I

Protocol II

Protocol III

The four 1949 Conventions have been ratified by 196 states, including all UN member states, both UN observers (the Holy See and the State of Palestine), as well as the Cook Islands. The Protocols have been ratified by 175, 170 and 80 states respectively. In addition, Article 90 of Protocol I states that "The High Contracting Parties may at the time of signing, ratifying or acceding to the Protocol, or at any other subsequent time, declare that they recognize ipso facto and without special agreement, in relation to any other High Contracting Party accepting the same obligation, the competence of the [International Fact-Finding] Commission to enquire into allegations by such other Party, as authorized by this Article." 77 states have made such a declaration.

Parties to the 1949 Conventions and Protocols I–III

Notes

Former states parties

The following states were party to the Geneva Conventions I–IV, but their ratifications have not been recognised as applying to any succeeding state under international law, though all have ratified in their own right:

Parties to the 1864 Geneva Convention

The first ten articles of the First Geneva Convention were concluded in 1864. This was the original Geneva Convention. The following states were parties to the 1864 Geneva Convention.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “List of parties to the Geneva Conventions” as countries that have ratified aspects of the Geneva Conventions. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1949, 1864—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where List, parties and Geneva can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as countries that have ratified aspects of the Geneva Conventions. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3558905. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1949 and 1864.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “List of parties to the Geneva Conventions” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.