The Martens Clause owes its name to the diplomat and jurist Fyodor Fyodorovich Martens, a representative of the Russian Empire at the First Hague Conference in 1899. Drafted and proposed by Martens during the negotiations, yet as a spontaneous compromise, the Clause has been included in the preamble of the Hague Convention with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land and is still considered an important principle of international humanitarian law today. This article traces the biography and academic path of F. F. Martens and explores the enduring significance of the Martens Clause.

The problems associated with the use of anti-personnel mines, especially in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Angola, to mention but a few of the countries where they have been deployed in large numbers and in areas where they constitute a threat to civilians long after hostilities have ceased, call for closer examination.

It will be recalled that, with the agreement of the Brazilian Ministry of the Interior and in close collaboration with the League of Red Cross Societies and the Brazilian Red Cross, the ICRC sent a team to Brazil in May 1970 to study the situation and needs of the Amazonian Indians. The team was led by Mr. S. Nessi, ICRC Delegate-General for Latin America, and comprised three doctors, B. Aakerren, S. Bakker and R. Habersang (who were loaned to the International Red Cross by the West German, Dutch and Swedish Red Cross Societies, which agreed also to meet the cost of the expedition) and a Swiss ethnologist, Mr. R. Fürst. They were joined in Rio de Janeiro by Dr. A. Borges dos Santos, a Brazilian Red Cross doctor. As they penetrated deep into the country, we published information on their journey, on the aid that they gave and on the medical centres that they set up.

Customary law concerning the protection of civilian populations against the effects of hostilities is essentially based on the rules of the law of The Hague. The general principle underlying it is set out in the Declaration of St. Petersburg (1868) which states “that the only legitimate object which States should endeavour to accomplish during war is to weaken the military forces of the enemy”.

From the time that man discovered fire and devised ways to use it as a tool for survival and advancement, it also has been employed as a weapon for destruction. Sun Tsu's The Art of War (500 B.C.) refers to incendiary arrows, while Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War describes a flame weapon used by the Spartans in 42 B.C. Edward Gibbon, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ascribes Roman success at Constantinople (1453 A.D.) to “Greek fire,” ignited naptha mixed with pitch and resin and spread upon the surface of the water. Great Britain employed Greek fire almost five centuries later as a defence along its coastlines in anticipation of an invasion in 1940.

In the European wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, armies employed compulsory taxation of the countryside in lieu of looting to finance their activities. A defaulting town would have some of its buildings burned, leading to the tax being referred to as Brandschatzung, “burning money.” This practice became widespread during the Thirty Years war.

The postponement of the 26th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, which was to have taken place in Budapest, has already given rise to a number of analyses, and explanations have been furnished to those who were to have taken part.

The seed distribution programme (mainly maize, sorghum and soya beans) had started off well in September, the plan being to assist some 100,000 displaced civilians in the provinces of Huambo and Bié, but the work was interrupted by a tragic plane crash on 14 October. The aircraft was a Hercules transport plane chartered by the ICRC in Switzerland, and it crashed soon after take-off, about 40 km from Kuito. There were no survivors among the four crew members—two Irish, Dorian Shone, the Captain, and Kevin Tocknell; one British, Nicholas Duff; and one New Zealander, Gary Heap—or among the passengers—one Angolan, Nuno Ferreira, and the Swiss secretary of the ICRC delegation in Kuito, Miss Catherine Chappuis.

Las postrimerías de este siglo plantearán un verdadero reto a todas las Sociedades Nacionales de la Cruz Roja y de la Media Luna Roja. La vulnerabilidad sigue agravándose para gran parte de la población mundial, a medida que se aceleran los cambios políticos y sociales. Son, asimismo, cada vez más numerosas las restricciones impuestas a los recursos que pueden utilizarse para atender las necesidades de las personas vulnerables.