This solemn and binding treaty unconditionally condemned and renounced recourse to war as an instrument of national policy, and promised that henceforth all international disputes would be settled peacefully. This treaty is still in force and together with the London Charter provided the legal basis for the trial of Germany’s leaders at Nuremburg after the Second World War.
Article I
The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.
Article II
The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.
Read the full text of The General Treaty for the Renunciation of War 1928
(The Kellogg-Briand Pact) here.
Comment
The main purpose of this treaty was to outlaw warfare as a method of conducting international affairs. The horrifying effects of the First World War in which millions were killed and maimed had convinced public opinion that such a war must never happen again. It was no longer acceptable for civilised nations to use armed force to achieve their objectives. Although the terms of this treaty were crystal clear, it included no enforcement method or punishment for those who violated it. Later this loophole in law enforcement enabled the leaders of Germany, Italy and Japan to initiate what was to become the Second World War in which nearly twenty million people were killed.
Fortunately for the rule of law, President Roosevelt refused to bow to the demands of Churchill and Stalin for the summary executions of the Axis nations’ leaders, and insisted on holding them to account for their crimes in court. As a result Germany’s leaders were convicted of waging wars of aggression in violation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact at the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials in 1946.
