KELLOGG-BRIAND PACT

The Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the Pact of Paris, was a treaty that attempted to outlaw war (46 Stat. 2343, T.S. No. 796, 94 L.N.T.S. 57). The treaty was drafted by France and the United States, and on August 27, 1928, was signed by fifteen nations. By 1933 sixty-five nations had pledged to observe its provisions.

Kellogg-Briand contained no sanctions against countries that might breach its provisions. Instead, the treaty was based on the hope that diplomacy and the weight of world opinion would be powerful enough to prevent nations from resorting to the use of force. This soon proved to be a false hope; though Germany, Italy, and Japan were all signatories, the treaty did not prevent them from committing aggressions that led to world war ii.

The origin of the Kellogg-Briand Pact was a message that the French foreign minister, Aristide Briand, addressed to the citizens of the United States on April 6, 1927, the tenth anniversary of the United States' entrance into world war i. In this message Briand announced France's willingness to join the United States in an agreement mutually outlawing war. Such an agreement, Briand stated, would "greatly contribute in the eyes of the world to enlarge and fortify the foundation on which the international policy of peace is being erected." Briand's overture to the United States was part of a larger campaign that France was waging to form strategic alliances that would improve its national security. In addition, Briand was influenced by recent conversations with Nicholas Murray Butler and James Thomson Shotwell, U.S. academics who were leaders in the burgeoning U.S. political movement to outlaw war, also known as the outlawry movement.

Initially, Briand's offer generated little reaction in the United States. The U.S. state department made no response, apparently considering Briand's statement to be simply an expression of friendship. Not until certain leaders in the peace movement, notably Butler, began to generate widespread public support for Briand's proposal did the government become involved. But by the middle of June 1927, France and the United States had begun diplomatic conversations aimed at reaching the sort of agreement Briand had proposed in his address.

On June 20 the State Department received the Draft Pact of Perpetual Friendship between France and the United States, written by Briand and transmitted through the U.S. ambassador in Paris. The draft contained just two articles: the first declared that France and the United States renounced war "as an instrument of their national policy towards each other," and the second declared that all conflicts between the two nations would be settled only by "pacific means." Secretary of State frank b. kellogg and other officials in the U.S. State Department were uncomfortable about entering into such an agreement with France alone, fearing that it would amount to an indirect alliance that would deprive the United States of the freedom to act if France were to go to war with another country. Instead, U.S. officials preferred to expand the agreement into a multilateral treaty involving all the world powers except Russia. On December 28, therefore, Kellogg told Briand that the United States was prepared to enter into negotiations with France to construct a treaty that would condemn war and renounce it as an instrument of national policy; when concluded, the treaty would be open to signature by all nations.

France accepted the United States' offer, and treaty negotiations began in January 1928. By early April the four other Great Powers—Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Japan—were invited to enter the discussions. Soon after, the invitation was extended to Belgium; Czechoslovakia; Poland; India; and the five British dominions, Australia, Canada, Irish Free State, New Zealand, and South Africa. Several of the parties wanted specific conditions and reservations included in the treaty. These issues were resolved, and on August 27, 1928, diplomats from the fifteen countries met in Paris to sign the treaty. By 1933 fifty additional countries had agreed to observe the treaty's provisions.

The final text of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, like the original draft, was extremely simple and contained just two principal articles. The first stated that the contracting parties "condemn[ed] recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce[d] it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another." In the second the parties agreed that "the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise between them, shall never be sought except by pacific means." The treaty therefore outlawed war entirely, providing no exceptions to this general prohibition. The parties, however, generally recognized that war would be permissible in the case of self-defense; several signatories, including the United States, had submitted diplomatic notes prior to the treaty's ratification indicating their understanding that wars entered into in self-defense would be lawful.

When it was signed, the Kellogg-Briand Pact was considered a tremendous milestone in the effort to advance the cause of international peace. In 1929 Kellogg received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the treaty. Events soon showed, however, that the pact did not prevent or limit war between the nations. The primary problem was that the treaty provided for no means of enforcement or sanctions against parties who violated its provisions. In addition, it did not address the issues of what constituted self-defense and when self-defense could lawfully be claimed. Because of these large loopholes, the Kellogg-Briand Pact was ultimately an ineffective method for achieving the ambitious and idealistic goal of outlawing war.

further readings

Arend, Anthony C., and Robert J. Beck. 1993. International Law and the Use of Force. London: Routledge.

Ferrell, Robert H. 1952. Peace in Their Time. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press.

Lunardini, Christine A. 1994. The American Peace Movement in the Twentieth Century. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.

Miller, David H. 1928. The Peace Pact of Paris. New York: Putnam.

Pauling, Linus, ed. 1986. World Encyclopedia of Peace. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Kellogg‐Briand Pact (1928).A treaty purporting to outlaw war in international law, the Kellogg‐Briand Pact, or Pact of Paris, was initially signed by fifteen nations and shortly gained the adherence of sixty‐two nations, including the United States, which ratified it in 1929.

The pact reflected a French search for security in the wake of World War I. Hoping for at least a moral sanction against possible German aggression, the French foreign minister, Aristide Briand, in 1928 proposed a U.S.‐French treaty to renounce war between them. U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg (1856–1937), seeking to preserve unilateral policy‐making, finessed the French initiative by universalizing it. Kellogg proposed a treaty that would pledge all signatories to “condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy.” Implicitly at least, the pact reaffirmed the 1899 Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes by pledging to settle conflicts solely “by pacific means.” It carried no mechanism for enforcement.

The acceptance of the pact in the United States reflected a widespread disillusionment with warfare and the emergence of antiwar pressure groups. With political leadership from the Republican senator William E. Borah of Idaho, the pact aligned advocates of outlawing war with proponents of international law. It forged the basis of a broad coalition of peace societies while deflecting stronger commitments to internationalism and more specific challenges to military defense.

The pact was widely understood to preclude only aggressive war, though that was not specified, leaving in place the option of defensive warfare. It was violated by aggressor states during the 1930s, leading up to World War II. Although widely disparaged by foreign policy realists for its idealistic framework, the Kellogg‐Briand Pact was invoked as the main precedent in international law prohibiting the “crimes against peace” that supplemented traditional war crimes in the trials at Nuremberg and, especially, Tokyo following World War II.
See also Peace Movements; War Crimes Trials, Nuremberg and Tokyo.

Bibliography

Robert H. Ferrell , Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg‐Briand Pact, 1952.
Charles DeBenedetti , Origins of the Modern American Peace Movement, 1915–1929, 1978.

E. Charles Chatfield

KELLOGG-BRIAND PACT

The Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the Pact of Paris, was the creation of French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg in 1928. Parties to this treaty pledged themselves to "renounce the resort to war as an instrument of national policy in their mutual relations" and to resolve all international disputes by "peaceful means alone." This agreement was signed in Paris on August 27, 1928, by France, the United States, and thirteen other powers. Soon it was endorsed by almost every country in the world, including the Soviet Union, Britain, Germany, and Japan. The treaty contained no enforcement mechanism and was, therefore, merely a pious promise to avoid war.

Soviet ratification of the pact on August 29, 1928, was part of a "peace offensive" spearheaded by Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs Maxim M. Litvinov. Beyond attempts to improve bilateral relations with the great powers and Russia's smaller neighbors, this campaign included efforts to promote broad measures of disarmament and to involve the USSR in the multilateral diplomacy of Europe. The pact was also supplemented by the Litvinov Protocol, signed on February 9, 1929, by the USSR, Poland, Rumania, and Latvia (and subsequently by Lithuania, Iran, and Turkey), pledging the peaceful resolution of all disputes among the signatories. Soviet participation in the pact and the protocol represented a victory for Litvinov's policy of constructive engagement with the dominant Western powers and a defeat for his nominal chief, Foreign Commissar Georgy Chicherin. It also marked a temporary victory for Nikolai Bukharin and other moderate Politburo members who supported the New Economic Policy and advocated security through peace and cooperation with the great powers.

See also: bukharin, nikolai ivanovich; litvinov, maxim maximovich; new economic policy

bibliography

Ferrell, Robert H. (1952). Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Brian Pact. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Jacobson, Jon. (1994). When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Teddy J. Uldricks

Kellogg-Briand Pact , agreement, signed Aug. 27, 1928, condemning "recourse to war for the solution of international controversies." It is more properly known as the Pact of Paris. In June, 1927, Aristide Briand , foreign minister of France, proposed to the U.S. government a treaty outlawing war between the two countries. Frank B. Kellogg , the U.S. Secretary of State, returned a proposal for a general pact against war, and after prolonged negotiations the Pact of Paris was signed by 15 nations—Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, the Irish Free State, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, and the United States. The contracting parties agreed that settlement of all conflicts, no matter of what origin or nature, that might arise among them should be sought only by pacific means and that war was to be renounced as an instrument of national policy. Although 62 nations ultimately ratified the pact, its effectiveness was vitiated by its failure to provide measures of enforcement. The Kellogg-Briand Pact was given an unenthusiastic reception by many countries. The U.S. Senate, ratifying the treaty with only one dissenting vote, still insisted that there must be no curtailment of America's right of self-defense and that the United States was not compelled to take action against countries that broke the treaty. The pact never made a meaningful contribution to international order, although it was invoked in 1929 with some success, when China and the USSR reached a tense moment over possession of the Chinese Eastern RR in Manchuria. Ultimately, however, the pact proved to be meaningless, especially with the practice of waging undeclared wars in the 1930s (e.g., the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and the German occupation of Austria in 1938).

Bibliography: See R. H. Ferrell, Peace in Their Time (1952, repr. 1968).

KELLOGG-BRIAND PACT

KELLOGG-BRIAND PACT (also called the Pact of Paris), signed 27 August 1928 by 15 nations, reflected the movement to outlaw war to prevent a recurrence of the carnage of World War I. French foreign minister Aristide Briand initially proposed a bilateral treaty renouncing war as a method of settling disputes between France and the United States and drawing the United States into its defensive system against Germany. U.S. support for the pact came from both ends of the political spectrum. Interventionists thought it would lead to U.S. acceptance of the League of Nations; isolationists and peace groups hoped it would end war. Charles Lindbergh's successful solo crossing of the Atlantic and subsequent landing in Paris in May 1927 also helped boost Briand's efforts. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg, fearful that signing the treaty could drag the United States into a European war on the side of France, expanded the proposed agreement to a multilateral treaty renouncing war. Briand had no choice but to accept the pact, which was moral in tone but lacked force and did not bind America to any European treaty system. Subsequently, when Japan seized Manchuria in 1931, when Italy took over Ethiopia in 1935, and later when Germany began its expansion in the late 1930s, the Pact was exposed as the toothless treaty it had been all along.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ferrell, Robert H. Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952.

Charles M.Dobbs

Kellogg–Briand Pact (Pact of Paris) (27 Aug. 1928) An agreement suggested by Briand and developed further by the US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg (b. 1856, d. 1937), which strove to guarantee a lasting international peace through the condemnation of war and the institution of a court of arbitration for the settlement of all international disputes. It was signed by fifteen states and subsequently adopted by forty-five further nations, including the Soviet Union. However, the absence of any sanctions that could be imposed on violators of the agreement rendered it virtually useless, and exposed the fundamental weakness of the existing international system.

League of Nations

Kellogg–Briand Pact, signed in 1928 by 65 states—almost every state then existing, including all the Great Powers of the day—renouncing war as an instrument of national policy. Its formal originator was the French statesman Aristide Briand (1862–1932); it was also named after Frank B. Kellogg (1856–1937), the cornflakes millionaire and United States secretary of state, who led the main negotiations for it. Within a dozen years, it had been broken by Japan, Italy, Germany, and the USSR among others of its signatories.

M. R. D. Foot

Kellogg-Briand Pact (or Pact of Paris) (1928) A multilateral agreement condemning war. It grew out of a proposal by the French Premier, Aristide BRIAND, to the US government for a treaty outlawing war between the two countries. The US Secretary of State, Frank B. Kellogg, proposed a multilateral treaty of the same character. In August 1928 15 nations signed an agreement committing themselves to peace; the USA ratified it in 1929, followed by a further 46 nations. The failure of the Pact to provide measures of enforcement nullified its contribution to international order.

Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) International peace agreement negotiated by US secretary of state, Frank B. Kellogg, and French foreign minister, Aristide Briand. It renounced war as a means of settling international disputes and was subsequently signed by most of the world's governments.