Martens, Georg Friedrich von [key], 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).
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