The Kellogg–Briand Pact or Pact of Paris – officially the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy – is a 1928 international agreement on peace in which signatory states promised not to use war to resolve "disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them". The pact was signed by Germany, France, and the United States on 27 August 1928, and by most other states soon after. Sponsored by France and the U.S., the Pact is named after its authors, United States Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French foreign minister Aristide Briand. The pact was concluded outside the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

and remains in effect. A common criticism is that the Kellogg–Briand Pact did not live up to all of its aims but has arguably had some success. It was unable to prevent the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

but was the basis for trial and execution of wartime German leaders in 1946. Furthermore, declared wars became very rare after 1945. It has been ridiculed for its moralism, legalism, and lack of influence on foreign policy. The pact had no mechanism for enforcement, and many historians and political scientists see it as mostly irrelevant and ineffective. Nevertheless, the pact served as the legal basis for the concept of a crime against peace, for which the Nuremberg Tribunal and Tokyo Tribunal tried and executed the top leaders responsible for starting World War II. Similar provisions to those in the Kellogg–Briand Pact were later incorporated into the

Charter of the United Nations The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the United Nations (UN). It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the Secretariat, the G ...

and other treaties, which gave rise to a more activist American foreign policy which began with the signing of the pact.

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Parties

The plan was devised by American lawyers Salmon Levinson and James T. Shotwell, and promoted by Senator William E. Borah. Borah and U.S. diplomat William Richards Castle Jr., Assistant Secretary of State, played key roles after Kellogg and Briand agreed on a two party treaty between the U.S. and France. It was originally intended as a bilateral treaty, but Castle worked to expand it to a multinational agreement that included practically the entire world. Castle managed to overcome French objections through his discussions with the French ambassador, replacing the narrow Franco-American agreement with a treaty that attracted almost all major and minor nations. The pact was first signed on 27 August 1928 in Paris at the French Foreign Ministry by the representatives from Australia, Belgium, Canada,

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

, France, Germany, the United Kingdom,

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...

, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, and the United States. It took effect on 24 July 1929. By that date, the following nations had deposited instruments of ratification of the pact: 12 additional parties joined after that date:

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

, Danzig,

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

and the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

for a total of 57 state parties by 1929. Six states joined between 1930 and 1934:

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

and

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. After the Second World War,

Barbados Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...

declared its accession to the treaty in 1971, followed by

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

(1973),

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Dominica Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of t ...

(both 1988), the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

and

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

(after Czechoslovakia dissolved in 1993), and, as a result of the dissolution of Yugoslavia,

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

(1992),

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

and

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

(both in 1994). The Free City of Danzig, which had joined the Pact in 1929, ceased to exist in 1939 and became a regular part of Poland after World War II. In the United States, the Senate approved the treaty 85–1, with only Wisconsin Republican John J. Blaine voting against over concerns with British imperialism. While the U.S. Senate did not add any reservations to the treaty, it did pass a measure which interpreted the treaty as not infringing upon the United States' right of

self-defense Self-defense (self-defence primarily in Commonwealth English) is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of Force (law), ...

and not obliging the nation to enforce it by taking action against those who violated it. BriandKellogg1928a.jpg, French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand speaking BriandKellogg1928b.jpg, German Foreign Minister

Gustav Stresemann Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman during the Weimar Republic who served as Chancellor of Germany#First German Republic (Weimar Republic, 1919–1933), chancellor of Germany from August to November 1 ...

signing KingAntiWar.jpg, Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs Mackenzie King signing

Effect and legacy

The 1928 Kellogg–Briand Pact was concluded outside the

and remains in effect. One month following its conclusion, a similar agreement, the General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, was concluded in Geneva, which obliged its signatory parties to establish conciliation commissions in any case of dispute. With the signing of the Litvinov Protocol in Moscow on February 9, 1929, the Soviet Union and its western neighbors, including

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

, agreed to put the Kellogg–Briand Pact in effect without waiting for other western signatories to ratify. The Bessarabian question had made agreement between Romania and the Soviet Union challenging and dispute between the nations over Bessarabia continued. The pact's central provisions renouncing the use of war, and promoting peaceful settlement of disputes and the use of collective force to prevent aggression, were incorporated into the

United Nations Charter The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the United Nations (UN). It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the United Nations System, UN system, including its United Nations System#Six ...

and other treaties. Although civil wars continued, wars between established states have been rare since 1945, with a few major exceptions such as the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and various conflicts in the Middle East. As a practical matter, the Kellogg–Briand Pact did not live up to its primary aims, but has arguably had some success. It did not end war or stop the rise of militarism, and was unable to keep the international peace in succeeding years. Its legacy remains as a statement of the idealism expressed by advocates for peace in the interwar period. However, it also helped to erase the legal distinction between war and peace, because the signatories, having renounced the use of war, began to wage wars without declaring them, as in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, and the German and Soviet invasions of Poland. The popular perception of the Kellogg–Briand Pact was best summarized by Eric Sevareid who, in a nationally televised series on American diplomacy between the two world wars, referred to the pact as a "worthless piece of paper". In his history of Europe from 1914 to 1948, historian Ian Kershaw referred to the Pact as "vacuous" and said that it was "a dead letter from the moment it was signed." While the Pact has been ridiculed for its moralism and legalism and lack of influence on foreign policy, it did lead to a more activist American foreign policy. Legal scholars Scott J. Shapiro and Oona A. Hathaway have argued that the Pact inaugurated "a new era of human history" characterized by the decline of inter-state war as a structuring dynamic of the international system. According to Shapiro and Hathaway one reason for the historical insignificance of the pact was the absence of an enforcement mechanism to compel compliance from signatories, since the pact only calls for violators to "be denied of the benefits furnished by hetreaty". They also said that the Pact appealed to the West because it promised to secure and protect previous conquests, thus securing their place at the head of the international legal order indefinitely. They wrote in 2017:

As its effects reverberated across the globe, it reshaped the world map, catalyzed the human rights revolution, enabled the use of economic sanctions as a tool of law enforcement, and ignited the explosion in the number of international organizations that regulate so many aspects of our daily lives.

Hathaway and Shapiro show that between 1816 and 1928 there was on average one military conquest every ten months. After 1945, in very sharp contrast, the number of such conflicts declined to one in every four years. The pact, in addition to binding the particular nations that signed it, has also served as one of the legal bases establishing the international norms that the threat or use of military force in contravention of international law, as well as the territorial acquisitions resulting from it, are unlawful. The interdiction of aggressive war was confirmed and broadened by the United Nations Charter, which provides in article 2, paragraph 4, that "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations." One legal consequence is that it is unlawful to annex territory by force, although other forms of annexation have not been prevented. More broadly, there is now a strong presumption against the legality of using, or threatening, military force against another country. Nations that have resorted to the use of force since the Charter came into effect have typically invoked self-defense or the right of collective defense. Notably, the pact also served as the legal basis for the concept of a crime against peace. It was for committing this crime that the Nuremberg Tribunal and Tokyo Tribunal tried and executed the top leaders responsible for starting World War II. Political scientists Julie Bunck and Michael Fowler in 2018 argued that the Pact was:

an important early venture in multilateralism. ... ternational law evolved to circumscribe the use of armed force with legal restrictions. The forcible acquisition of territory by conquest became illegitimate and individual criminal liability might attach to those who pursued it. In criminalizing war Kellogg–Briand played a role in the development of a new norm of behavior in international relations, a norm that continues to play a role in our current international order.Julie M. Bunck, and Michael R. Fowler. "The Kellogg–Briand Pact: A Reappraisal." ''Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law'' 27 #2(2018): 229–27
online
/ref>

References

Notes Bibliography * Bunck, Julie M., and Michael R. Fowler. "The Kellogg–Briand Pact: A Reappraisal." ''Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law'' 27 #2(2018): 229–27
online
a major scholarly survey. * Carroll, Francis M. "War and Peace and International Law: The Kellogg–Briand Peace Pact Reconsidered." ''Canadian Journal of History'' (2018) 53#1 : 86–96. * Cavendish, Richard. "The Kellogg–Briand Pact Aims to Bring an End to War". ''History Today'' 58.8 (2008): 11+. * DeBenedetti, Charles. "Borah and the Kellogg–Briand Pact." The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 63.1 (1972): 22–29. * Ellis, Lewis Ethan. ''Frank B. Kellogg and American foreign relations, 1925–1929'' (1961)
online
* Ellis, Lewis Ethan. ''Republican Foreign Policy, 1921–1933'' (1968)
online
* * "H-Diplo Roundtable XXI-15 on The Internationalists
online
* Hathaway, Oona A. and Shapiro, Scott J. "International law and its transformation through the outlawry of war". ''International Affairs'' (2019) 95#1 pp 45–62 * Hathaway, Oona A., and Scott J. Shapiro. "International law and its transformation through the outlawry of war." ''International Affairs'' (2019) 95#1 pp 45–62. Argues for a major impactthat this prohibition is key to understanding international law and state behavior in the last century. * Johnson, Gaynor. "Austen Chamberlain and the Negotiation of the Kellogg–Briand Pact, 1928" in Gaynor Johnson, ed. ''Locarno Revisited: European Diplomacy 1920–1929''. (Routledge, 2004) pp 54–67. * Jones, E. Stanley. ''The Pact Of Paris Officially The General Pact For The Renunciation Of War'' (1929
online
* Josephson, Harold. "Outlawing war: Internationalism and the Pact of Paris." ''Diplomatic History'' 3.4 (1979): 377–390. * Kampmark, Binoy. "Punishing wars of aggression: conceptualising Nazi State criminality and the US policy behind shaping the crime against peace, 1943–1945." ''War & Society'' (2018) 37#1 pp 38–56. * Limberg, Michael. In Relation to the Pact': Radical Pacifists and the Kellogg–Briand Pact, 1928–1939". ''Peace & Change'' 39.3 (2014): 395–420. * Miller, David Hunter. ''The Pact of ParisA Study of the Briand–Kellogg Treaty'' (1928) * Shotwell, James T. ''War as an instrument of national policy : and its renunciation in the pact of Paris'' (1929
online
* Swanson, David. ''When the World Outlawed War'' (2011).

External links

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Parties

Effect and legacy

See also

References

External links