Kellogg-Briand Pact

The Kellogg-Briand Pact, also called the Pact of Paris, is a multilateral treaty signed at Paris on 27 August 1928 in which the contracting states condemned recourse to war for the solution of international controversies and renounced it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another. It has only two operative articles. The first states the renunciation of war, and the second commits the parties to seek the settlement of every dispute or conflict, whatever its nature or origin, only by pacific means. A third article provides for ratification, with the instruments deposited at Washington, and keeps the treaty open to adherence by every other power. The original signatories were Germany, the United States, Belgium, France, Great Britain with its dominions and India, Italy, Japan, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The United States proclaimed the treaty in force on 24 July 1929, after the last instrument of ratification was deposited, and a long list of further states had adhered by then.