Today’s Almanac-August 27, 2010
The signing ceremony for the Kellogg-Briand Pack in Paris, 1928.
When it was signed at the French Foreign Ministry in Paris on August 27, 1928 the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, better known as the Kellogg-Briand Pack was hailed as the instrument that would end international warfare. It remains officially in force to this day. Sadly, it does not seem to have deterred a single international conflict. The Pact had its origins in a proposed bi-lateral agreement by France and the United States to renounce war as “an instrument of national policy.” American Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg, aware that the Senate had rejected the League of Nations only a few years earlier and that ongoing American operations in Central America and the Caribbean were being criticized in Europe, felt that the treaty would get greater support if it were open to other signatories. His negotiating partner and treaty co-author French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand agreed. In addition to the initiating countries representatives of several countries signed that day including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Germany, India, the Irish Free State, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. By the time the treaty took effect on July 24, 1924 31 additional nations had agreed. Eight more signed on subsequently. Eventually, counting the colonial possessions of the signatories and League of Nations Trust Territories administered by them, most of the nations of the world were on board. Notable exceptions were Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, Mexico, and most of South America including Columbia, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. Surprisingly, given the fierce resistance to the League of Nations, the treaty sailed through the ratification process in the United States Senate. It passed by a vote of 85 to 1 with two stipulated reservations-that the treaty must not infringe upon America's right of self defense and that the country was not obliged to enforce the treaty by taking action against those who violated it. It was the lack of an effective means of enforcement that doomed the treaty as an effective tool to prevent war. Although the treaty had the force of international law, it was concluded outside of the League of Nations, to which the United States did not belong. A companion international agreement, the General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes obliged its signatory parties to establish conciliation commissions in any case of dispute, but could not compel parties to establish them or to agree to recommendations that they might make. The pact soon showed how weak it really was. It did nothing to deter signators from aggressive action including the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, or the German and Soviet invasion of Poland. The Pact’s failure to prevent World War II is often cited by conservative critics of international agreements. None the less, the existence of the treaty led to the inclusion of “crimes against peace” in the articles of the Nuremberg Tribunal prohibition against offensive war was echoed in Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. The UN used force against North Korea when it invaded the South. Since then nations have claimed either self defense or collective defense when going to war. While outright land grabs have become rare, many global conflicts are narrowly papered over by these claims.