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This Just in: War is Illegal

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This weekend we celebrate the 78th anniversay of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. There'll be bands marching, fireworks in the sky, and outdoor parties and celebrations.

What? You don't know about the Kellogg-Briand Pact?

As it turns out, we made all war illegal in 1928. Here's part of the Wiki article.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the Pact of Paris, after the city where it was signed on August 27, 1928, is an international treaty "providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy." It failed in this purpose, but is significant for later developments in international law. It was named after the American secretary of state, Frank B. Kellogg, and French Foreign minister Aristide Briand, who both drafted the pact.

The pact was proposed 1927 by Aristide Briand, the French foreign minister and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, as a bilateral treaty between the United States and France outlawing war between the two countries. Briand thought it would both improve the cooled relations between the former allies and, more importantly, ensure that the United States would ally with France in the event of another European war.

Frank B. Kellogg, the US Secretary of State, wanted to avoid any involvement in another European War, and so was indifferent towards the proposal. However, if he opposed the treaty he would be attacked in both Congress and the press by groups which favored such an agreement. Kellogg thus responded with a proposal for a multilateral pact against war open for all nations to become signatories.

After negotiations, it was signed in Paris on August 27, 1928 by eleven states: Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Germany, India, the Irish Free State, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Four states added their support before it was proclaimed -- Poland, Belgium, and France (in March), and Japan (in April). It was proclaimed to go into effect on July 24, 1929. Sixty-two nations ultimately signed the pact.

In the United States, the Senate approved the treaty overwhelmingly, 85-1. However, it did add a reservation that the treaty must not infringe upon America's right of self defense and that the United States was not obliged to enforce the treaty by taking action against those who violated it.


In light of the casualties that resulted from World War I, Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand crafted the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact. This international peace proposal committed 15 nations to outlawing aggression and war in settling disputes. President Coolidge signed the Pact on January 17, 1929. The ceremony took place in the East Room, making use of President Grant's old Cabinet Table.

Makes you wonder if all of those people really thought that war was really going to be outlawed. Were they serious? Or was this just an attempt by Kellogg to outmanever the French which turned into a peccadillo for everyone concerned?

I wonder what they thought they were accomplishing? It wasn't two or three years later that the Pact was already broken. The obvious lesson is that well-meaning people and nice-sounding words and photo-ops don't mean a hill of beans in the real world, but my intution tells me there is an interesting story in there somewhere. I'd like to hear more about it sometime.

3 Comments

which senate didnt sign the kellogg briand pact

Brooke,

I'm not sure what you are saying. Let's try using sentences: begin with a capital letter, have a subject verb and predicate, and end with some kind of punctuation. I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but your comment is really unintelligible -- at least to me. Senates don't "sign" anything.

Very Nice. Please do not correct my grammer.

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This page contains a single entry by DanielBMarkham published on August 24, 2006 3:45 PM.

Pluto: Fighting for Life was the previous entry in this blog.

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