Surgeon-General Georges Saint-Paul who by his generous initiative acquired the right to the title of "benefactor of humanity", unfortunately succumbed on 7 April 1937 to angina pectoris at his château de Rassay in Genillé in Indre-et-Loire France.

[7] In 1946, the mayor of St. Gallen, Mr. Anderegg, a member of the Swiss Federal Parliament, presented a postulate based on the humanitarian work of Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, and on the actions undertaken at the instigation of the “Les Lieux de Genève”.

[9] In 1949, after the signing of the four diplomatic Geneva Conventions, the Lieux de Genève turned their attention to the practical implementation of refuge areas for the protection of non-combatants.

It was during this jubilee year, 1951, that Milan Bodi, Deputy Secretary General, was called to succeed Henri George, who died on 6 May 1951, after a short illness, at the age of 77.

To this end, an international conference was held in Berlin in 1954 on “The Problem of Protecting Civilian Populations in Time of War through the Creation and Recognition of Neutralized Zones and Open Cities”.

Following the resolutions adopted by the Berlin congressmen, the International Association proceeded to make many countries aware of the principle of preparing places of refuge in collaboration with national civil protection institutions.

Following this, the Association des Lieux de Genève profoundly modified its structure at the General Assembly of 10 January 1958, by creating a true International Committee, thus renouncing its title whose local consonance often led to confusion.

In 1966, in Monaco, following the 2nd International Symposium on Radiological Protection, the representatives of the ICDO Member States, meeting in a Constituent Assembly, adopted the text of the present Constitution which gives it the status of an Intergovernmental Organization under the same name.

This Constitution is in fact an international Convention binding on the High Contracting Parties and subsequently on each country which, by depositing its instruments of ratification, has acceded to it as a Member State.

[11][12][13] The preamble to the Constitution defines the aims of the Organization and reads as follows: “To intensify and co-ordinate worldwide the development and improvement of the Organization, methods and technical means of preventing and mitigating the consequences of natural disasters in times of peace, or of the use of weapons in times of conflict.” The Constitution effectively came into force on 1 March 1972 at the first General Assembly of its Member States.

In parallel with the legal and statutory development of the Organization and its contribution to the formulation of the new Humanitarian Law, its leaders worked tirelessly to promote techniques and knowledge in prevention, preparedness and response.

At this point, if we summarize the evolution that had taken place over the first 50 years between General Saint-Paul's "Lieux de Genève" and today's International Civil Defence Organization, we can see that the notion of protection of civilians in times of war has been extended to the protection and security of populations in general, thanks to the intensification, coordination and planning, at an international level, of the methods, means and technologies for preventing, combating and alleviating the consequences of all kinds of accidents, disasters and calamities.