In addition to the general national emergency discussed, the literature of international law recognizes also a special war emergency. According to this, “in a state of self-defense and emergency, even such actions are permitted which violate the laws of warfare and therefore international law.” But in the sense of international law the “military necessity of war” which by itself never justifies the violation of the laws of warfare differs from self-defense and emergency. Emergency and necessity of war, however, are different concepts. The emergency due to which the self-preservation and the self-development of the threatened nation are at stake justifies, according to general principles recognized by the national laws of all civilized countries, the violation of every international standard and thus also of the legal principles of the laws of warfare. When applying the concepts of self-defense and emergency as recognized by criminal and international law, the illegality of violations committed is excluded if the nation found itself in a situation which could not be relieved by any other means. In this connection the following must be pointed out: I have already explained that the experimental subjects, on whom the sulfanilamide experiments forming the subject of this case were performed, came under German jurisdiction, even if one holds the opinion that Poland’s case was not one of genuine “debellatio” but only of “ocupatio bellica”.[3] However, whatever opinion one might hold with regard to this question, there can be no doubt that assuming an emergency according to international law, the performance of the experiments would have been justified even if at the time the experimental subjects had still been citizens of an enemy nation. Decisive for the regulation of the conditions of such persons according to international law are the “Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land” annexed to the Hague Convention, dated 18 October 1907. According to the above statements, however, even a violation of such special conventions, as contained for instance in the special prohibitions of Article 23, is justified during a genuine war emergency. The fact that the special conditions characterizing a real war emergency are existent invalidates the objection that citizens of another country should not have been used for the experiments. _The Evaluation of Conflicting Rights and_ _Interests as Legal Excuse_