Transcript kellogg

The Kellogg –
Briand Pact
1
1
Biographies
KELLOGG
BRIAND
Frank Billings KELLOGG was
born on December 22, 1856 in
Potsdan, in St. Lawrence County,
New York. In 1865, his family moved
to Minnesota where he studied in a
country school. He worked on a farm
until 1875 and studied law in
Rochester, Minnesota. He became a
lawyer in 1877 and started his career
in Minnesota. A member of the
Republican party, he was elected to
the US Senate. He took his seat on
March 4, 1917 and left it on March 3,
1923.
Aristide Briand was born on March
28, 1862 in Nantes. He started his
career as a lawyer, then as a
journalist, writing for La Lanterne and
other 2newspapers. He was then the
leader of the Socialist Party and
elected to the Chamber of Deputies
until he died. From the year 1905,
his ideas differed from Jules Guesde’s
socialist ideas so he left the Socialist
Party. He distinguished himself in
1905 as the rapporteur of the law
separating church and state.
2
In 1923, he was sent as a
delegate to the fifth PanAmerican
conference
in
Santiago de Chile and from
1923 to 1925, he was appointed
as the American ambassador to
the United Kingdom.
From 1925 to 1929, he
held the position of secretary of
state in Calvin Coolidge’s
cabinet and signed the Pact of
Paris also called the KelloggBriand Pact in 1928. Kellogg
was awarded the Peace Nobel
Prize for 1929. He was elected
to the Permanent Court of
International Justice from 1930
to 1935.
He died in Saint Paul in
1937.
Thanks to his eloquence
and his sense of compromise,
he managed to have the
Chamber of Deputies pass the
law. He was appointed to
administer it as minister of
public instruction and worship in
Sarrien’s cabinet on March 14,
1906 and retained this post in
Clemenceau’s government on
October 15, 1906.
3 During the First World
War, from October 29, 1915 to
December 12, 1916, as the
Prime Minister of France, he
supported
the
Macedonian
Front. After the war, he
supported the League of
Nations and tried to build a
lasting and peaceful relationship
with Germany.
3
With Gustav Stresemann,
his German counterpart, he
convinces
the
European
ministers of Foreign Affairs
to sign the Locarno treaties
on October 16, 1925. Both
men received the Nobel Prize
for 1926.
On August 27, 1928,
they
organized
the
4
signature
of the KelloggBriand Pact in Paris, which
aimed at renouncing war.
Briand feels confident and
calls for the creation of the
United States of Europe but
the Wall Street Crash of
1929
will
ruin
his
expectations.
4
The Kellogg-Briand Pact
French Minister of Foreign Affairs Aristide Briand wanted to
extend the principle of collective security of the League of
Nations to the two great countries which weren’t part of this
organization: the United States and the USSR. On April 6, 1927,
on the tenth anniversary of the United States’ entrance into
World War I, he presented the American
Secretary of State,
5
Franck Billings Kellogg, the idea that France would join the
United States in an agreement mutually outlawing war as a
means to resolve the conflicts. Kellogg suggested this treaty
become universal and extended to other states which would
commit to respecting it. France agreed and desired to maintain
the right of self-defense and that nothing in the treaty impaired
the covenant of the League of Nations and the Locarno treaties.
This pact was signed by 65 states.
5
After the signature of the pact
When the pact was signed, the right to self-defense was the
only exception which allowed nations to resort to force. However, the
pact did not address the issues of what constituted self-defense and
when it could lawfully be claimed. That’s why it was decided that if a
state wanted to use the right to self-defense, the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC) should be seized and give their opinion on the
situation.
However, the situation was not clear at all because in case a
state was attacked, the signatories had6 to intervene to resolve the
conflict.
The right to self-defense could only be exercised if the UNSC
had not taken the necessary steps to maintain peace.
But this was ineffective: with the Cold War, the UNSC was
never able to indicate whether a situation constituted self-defense or
not. The procedure became obsolete: states stopped seizing the UNSC
or when they did, they acted before they hand down a decision. As a
consequence of such actions, the UNSC considered that peace should
be broken. However, it was decided that states had to settle the
conflict in a peaceful way.
6
Briand’s pacifism
We can conclude that Aristide Briand’s pacifistic mind and effort
lead to a positive evolution of the states: before the pact, conflicts were
settled in a violent and disastrous manner but thanks to the rules
imposed by the UNSC, countries will have to deal with their problems in a
peaceful way without any war or assault.
7
We can suppose that this would never have happened without
the very strong friendship and pacifism of Kellogg and Briand and that,
without them, we would still be confronted to violent and constant wars.
7
Sources
-
http://www.herodote.net/histoire/synthese.php?ID=593
http://www.herodote.net/almanach/jour.php?ID=1603
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=k000065
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1929/kelloggbio.html
8
8