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Author : Ye. Voronin
Professor, Department of International Law, Moscow State Institute (University) of International Re-
lations (MGIMO), Mnistry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Ambassador Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary
IT IS WITH GOOD REASON that we speak of the
legal thought of Russia, and the school of Fyodor
Martens, in the first place, as part of the contemporary
doctrine of international law, a common heritage of the
European legal tradition. His school was completely de-
voted to the principles of international law and the rule
of law as the linchpin of foreign policy of all civilized
states that rejected force as a means of settling interstate
disagreements and a tool of prevention of European
clashes.
The science of international law and European legal consciousness recognizes Fyodor Martens,
Professor at St. Petersburg University and the Imperial Alexander Lyceum a very close analogue
of MGIMO, as one of the leading jurists who insisted on the primacy of law in international re-
lations, who spared no effort to establish an international court with the right to pass binding
decisions and who was known as a "Russian politician."
The unique professionalism of Martens and the unique nature of his theoretical and practical
school rested on three pillars: efficient international law, peace diplomacy and writings for the
media based on facts.
Professor Martens shared, in many respects, the "legal" idealism of the "nobly assured" century
and the ideas of self-assured pacifism.
The pacifist movement was intimately connected with the institute of arbitration as the main
trend of international jurisprudence on the eve of war. The European idea rooted in the Western
Christian civilization found its firm ground in the jus gentium norms, the source of arbitration
as a form of settling international disagreements.
Diplomatiae tribunali of the early twentieth century developed into a preferable doctrinal practice
of settling the war and peace issues actively supported by Martens and his followers. The concept
of settling European contradictions, in the field of collective security in the first place, through
arbitration and rejection of the use of military force, was moved to the dominant positions in
the science of international law and affected, to a certain extent, European diplomatic practices.
The legal ideas of the Martens school about international governance were of great "forecasting"
importance. The principles and norms of the theory of international governance as expounded
by Martens were a prototype of sorts of the functional foundation of international organizations,
the UN in the first place, as we know them today. His ideas about the legal nature of non-inter-
The Russian School of Prof. Martens and Contemporary Interna-
tional Law