Dunant’s fateful experience on the night of June 24th, 1859 led to the creation of an international law that continues to bind nations to the pillar of humanitarianism that Dunant sought to uphold in his life and career.
After the Convention, Gustave Moynier wrote that “it will henceforth only need a stroke of the pen to banish old practices which centuries were barely able to discard. Thus to the glory of having profoundly altered the philosophy of law by joining it with ethics, our period has added the achievement of having created genuine rules of war.”14 There is a great deal of optimism in Moynier’s thoughts, and the Convention seemed to be well received in Europe at the time. However, Dunant began to withdraw his involvement in the Committee, writing to Moynier, “I intend to retire into the background. The enterprise has been set on foot; I have only been an instrument in the hands of God.”15
