Martens, Georg Friedrich Von

Martens, Georg Friedrich von (gāôrkh` frē`drĭkh fôn mär`təns), 1756–1821, German writer on international law, b. Hamburg. He was professor of international law at Göttingen (1783–89), a state councilor of Westphalia (1808–13), and the representative of the king of Hanover in the diet of Frankfurt (1816–21). His two great works (written in French) were a comparative study of European law, Précis du droit des gens modernes de l'Europe (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., 1791–1801), which was continually brought up to date until the end of World War II (3d series, 41 vol., 1908–44).

---

Martens, Georg Friedrich Von 

Born Feb. 22, 1756, in Hamburg; died Feb. 21, 1821, in Frankfurt am Main. German jurist and diplomat, expert in international law.

Martens became a professor at the University of Gottingen in 1783. From 1814 to 1816 he was counsellor of the king of Hanover. From 1816 to 1821 he served as representative of the kingdom of Hanover in the German Confederation in Frankfurt. Martens wrote a number of works on international law, including Basic Features of Practical European International Law (1785). Starting in 1776, Martens published collections of international agreements; the collections continue to be published in West Germany today under the title Continuation of the Collection ofG. F. Martens.