4
Dec. 45
continued.
Nor was it only the operation of the League
which gave ground, and good ground, for hope
that at long last the rule of law would replace
anarchy in the international field.
The
statesmen of the world deliberately set out to
make wars of aggression an international crime.
These are no new terms invented by the victors
to embody in this Charter. They have figured,
and they have figured prominently, in numerous
treaties, in governmental pronouncements, and in
the declarations of statesmen in the period
preceding the second World War. In treaties
concluded between the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics and other states, such as Persia in
1927, France in 1935, China in 1937, the
contracting parties undertook to refrain from
any act of aggression whatever against the other
party. In 1933 the Soviet Union became a party
to a large number of treaties containing a
detailed definition of aggression, and the same
definition appeared in the same year in the
authoritative report of the Committee on
Questions of Security set up in connection with
the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation
of Armaments. But at this time states were going
beyond commitments to refrain from wars of
aggression and to assist states which were
victims of aggression. They were condemning
aggression in unmistakable terms. Thus in the
Anti-War Treaty of Non-Aggression and
Conciliation, which was signed on the 10th of
October 1933, by a number of American states,
subsequently joined by practically all the
states of the American continents and a number
of European countries as well, the contracting
parties solemnly declared that "they
condemn wars of aggression in their mutual
relations or in those of other states." And
that treaty was fully incorporated into the
Buenos Aires convention of December 1936, signed
and ratified by a large number of American
countries, including, of course, the United
States. And previously, in 1928, the 6th
Pan-American Conference had adopted a resolution
declaring that, as "war of aggression
constitutes a crime against the human species .
. . all aggression is illicit and as such is
declared prohibited." A year earlier, as
long ago as September 1927, the Assembly of the
League of Nations adopted a resolution affirming
the conviction that "a war of aggression
can never serve as a means of settling
international disputes and is, in consequence,
an international crime" and going on to
declare that "all wars of aggression are,
and shall always be prohibited."
The
first article of the draft Treaty for Mutual
Assistance of 1923 read in these terms:
"The
High Contracting Parties, affirming that
aggressive war is an international
crime, undertake the solemn engagement
not to make themselves guilty of this
crime against any other nation."