The contemporary prohibition of the use of inter-State force

Abstract

The Kellogg–Briand Pact The year 1928 was a watershed date in the history of the legal regulation of the use of inter-State force. That was when the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy, known as the Kellogg–Briand Pact (after the American Secretary of State and the French Foreign Minister), was signed in Paris. Before the outbreak of World War II, the Pact had sixty-three contracting parties, a record number for that period. The Kellogg–Briand Pact comprised only three articles, including one of a technical nature. In Article 1, the contracting parties solemnly declared 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’. In Article 2, they agreed that the settlement of all disputes with each other ‘shall never be sought except by pacific means’. With the Kellogg–Briand Pact, international law progressed from jus ad bellum to jus contra bellum . But although generally prohibited under the Pact, war remained lawful in the following circumstances: (a) A war of self-defence. No provision relating to this vitally important subject was incorporated in the text of the Pact. Nevertheless, formal notes reserving the right of self-defence were exchanged between the principal signatories prior to the conclusion of the Pact, and there never was any doubt that the renunciation of war had to be construed accordingly.