1. 1 1 The Kellogg – Briand Pact

2. 2 2 Biographies BRIAND 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 newspapers. 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. KELLOGG 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.

3. 3 3 In 1923, he was sent as a delegate to the fifth Pan- American 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 Kellogg- Briand 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. 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.

4. 4 4 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 signature of the Kellogg- Briand 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.

5. 5 5 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, 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.

6. 6 6 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 had 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.

7. 7 7 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. 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.

8. 8 8 Sources -http://www.herodote.net/histoire/synthese.php?ID=593http://www.herodote.net/histoire/synthese.php?ID=593 -http://www.herodote.net/almanach/jour.php?ID=1603http://www.herodote.net/almanach/jour.php?ID=1603 -http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=k000065http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=k000065 -http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1929/kellogg- bio.htmlhttp://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1929/kellogg- bio.html