August 27, 1928
The Kellogg–Briand Pact (officially the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy) was an international agreement in which signatory states promised not to use war to resolve “disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them.” It was signed by Germany, France and the United States on August 27 and by most other nations soon after. The Pact renounced the use of war and called for the peaceful settlement of disputes. Ultimately, the pact blurred the legal distinction between war and peace because the signatories, having renounced the use of war, began to wage wars without declaring them as in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, and the German and Soviet Union invasions of Poland.
