《日内瓦（四）公约》包括1949年8月12日在日内瓦重新缔结的四部基本的国际人道法，为国际法中的人道主义定下了标准。它们主要有关战争受难者、战俘和战时平民的待遇。它们并不影响在1899年和1907年的《海牙公约》覆盖的武器的使用及1925年在《日内瓦协议》中在对气体和生物武器的使用。

现在，《日内瓦公约及其附加议定书》指《1949年8月12日日内瓦四公约》及后来产生的它们的共同附加议定书（已有三个，前两个是主要的）。

The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of war. The singular term Geneva Convention usually denotes the agreements of 1949, negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–45), which updated the terms of the first three treaties (1864, 1906, 1929), and added a fourth. The Geneva Conventions extensively defined the basic rights of wartime prisoners (civilians and military personnel); established protections for the wounded and sick; and established protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone. The treaties of 1949 were ratified, in whole or with reservations, by 196 countries. Moreover, the Geneva Convention also defines the rights and protections afforded to non-combatants, yet, because the Geneva Conventions are about people in war, the articles do not address warfare proper—the use of weapons of war—which is the subject of the Hague Conventions (First Hague Conference, 1899; Second Hague Conference 1907), and the bio-chemical warfare Geneva Protocol (Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, 1925).