The 1928 Kellogg–Briand Pact denounced war as an instrument of national policy. Its formal title was the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy, and its signatories promised to settle disputes through peaceful means.
The agreement grew from an initiative by French foreign minister Aristide Briand and U.S. secretary of state Frank B. Kellogg. Briand initially proposed a bilateral promise between France and the United States, but Kellogg urged that the idea become a multilateral treaty open to other nations.
Fifteen countries signed in Paris on August 27, 1928, including France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Additional states later joined; contemporary diplomatic records commonly counted 62 adherents by 1929. The pact expressed the powerful post–World War I hope that international law could make aggressive war illegitimate.
It had no effective enforcement mechanism and did not prevent Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, or World War II. Nevertheless, its rejection of aggressive war influenced the “crime against peace” charges used at the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials.