LONDON NUCLEAR WARFARE TRIBUNAL
Evidence, Commentary, and Judgment

The preamble to the fourth Hague Convention of 1907 has become known as the de Martens clause, after its author. The clause has been duplicated and adopted in nearly all the major 20th century treaties of the laws of war. The nuclear weapons states consider themselves bound by the clause. It states as follows: "Until a more complete code of the laws of war has been issued, the high contracting Parties deem it expedient to declare that, in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, the inhabitants and belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized people, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience."

The main body of the Hague Conventions reaffirmed and expanded what is stated in the St. Petersberg Declaration in 1868:

• that the right of a belligerent to adopt means of injury the enemy is not unlimited.

It expanded and forbade:

• the employment of poison or poisoned weapons;
• the killing or wounding treacherously of individuals belonging to the hostile state or army;
• the employment of arms, projectiles or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;

It also went further by prohibiting:

• the destruction or seizure of enemy property unless such destruction was necessary; and,
• attacks on undefended villages and towns.

The Hague Conventions reaffirmed that religious, artistic, scientific or charitable buildings should be spared as much as possible during a siege, as well as historical monuments and places where the sick and wounded are cared for.

By Hague Convention V, the territory of neutral powers was made inviolable³