Origin 1899
The Martens Clause is a principle of international humanitarian law holding that combatants and civilian populations remain protected by the customary usages of civilized nations, the laws of humanity, and the dictates of public conscience even where no specific treaty provision covers a situation. It was introduced by the Russian diplomat Friedrich Martens at the 1899 Hague Peace Conference as a compromise in the dispute between major and smaller powers over the legal status of civilian fighters known as francs-tireurs, and it first appeared in the preamble of the 1899 Hague Convention II on the Laws and Customs of War. Scholars read its scope differently, from a narrow reminder that customary law survives the adoption of a treaty, to a broader claim that treaties cannot excuse otherwise prohibited conduct, to the widest reading that it imports natural law notions of humanity and conscience directly into the regulation of armed conflict. The clause reappears in modified form in the 1907 Hague Conventions and the 1977 Geneva Protocols, and remains cited in international humanitarian law disputes today. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Origin Period Core PrincipleThe clause prevents the assumption that anything not explicitly prohibited by the relevant treaties is therefore permitted. 1 Origin Period
Origin Period (category)19th Century (1800-1899) 1 Classification
Doctrine Category Connections
In Area Of Law
Entity-backed identity for the doctrine category value this doctrine already carries as an enum fact, resolved to a doctrine entity by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The enum fact itself stays on the entity unchanged.
Sources
1. Martens Clause (Wikipedia)
Introduction
first introduced into the preamble of the 1899 Hague Convention II
Analysis
the Martens clause prevents the assumption that anything which is not explicitly prohibited by the relevant treaties is therefore permitted
View the Source2. Wikipedia: Martens Clause
an early international law concept first introduced into the preamble of the 1899 Hague ConventionView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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