The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Martens, Georg Friedrich von
(gôrkh´ fr´drkh fôn mär´tns) (KEY) , 17561821, German writer on international law, b. Hamburg. He was professor of international law at Göttingen (178389), a state councilor of Westphalia (180813), and the representative of the king of Hanover in the diet of Frankfurt (181621). His two great works (written in French) were a comparative study of European law, Précis du droit des gens modernes de lEurope (2 vol., 1789; tr. Summary of the Law of Nations, 1795; a revision of an earlier work in Latin), and an enormous collection of treaties signed after 1761, Recueil des principaux traités [collection of treaties] (7 vol., 17911801), which was continually brought up to date until the end of World War II (3d series, 41 vol., 190844).