Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1928, Volume I

711.5112France/192: Circular telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Herrick)¹²

Washington, March 1, 1928—4 p.m.

Press reports from Paris indicate some confusion as to the resolution of the Havana Conference referred to in my note of February 27, 1928. For your information and such use as may seem to you desirable, there were two anti-war resolutions adopted by the Havana Conference, one dealing only with wars of aggression and the other expressing unqualified condemnation of all war.

The text of the general resolution referred to in my note is as follows:

“The Sixth International Conference of American States resolves: Whereas: The American Republics desire to express that they condemn war as an instrument of national policy in their mutual relations; and

Whereas: The American Republics have the most fervent desire to contribute in every possible manner to the development of international means for the pacific settlement of conflicts between States:

1. That the American Republics adopt obligatory arbitration as the means which they will employ for the pacific solution of their international differences of a juridical character.

2. That the American Republics will meet in Washington within the period of one year in a conference of conciliation and arbitration to give conventional form to the realization of this principle, with the minimum exceptions which they may consider indispensable to safeguard the independence and sovereignty of the States, as well as matters of a domestic concern, and to the exclusion also of matters involving the interest or referring to the action of a State not a party to the convention.

3. That the Governments of the American Republics will send for this end plenipotentiary jurisconsults with instructions regarding the maximum and the minimum which they would accept in the extension of obligatory arbitral jurisdiction.

4. That the convention or conventions of conciliation and arbitration which may be concluded should leave open a protocol for progressive arbitration which would permit the development of this beneficent institution up to its maximum.

5. That the convention or conventions which may be agreed upon, after signature, should be submitted immediately to the respective Governments for their ratification in the shortest possible time.”

The text of the resolution against aggression is as follows:

“The Sixth International Conference of American States: Considering:

That the American nations should always be inspired in solid cooperation for justice and the general good:

That nothing is so opposed to this cooperation as the use of violence:

That there is no international controversy, however serious it may be, which cannot be peacefully arranged if the parties desire in reality to arrive at a pacific settlement:

That war of aggression constitutes an international crime against the human species:

It resolves:

1. All aggression is considered illicit and as such is declared prohibited.

2. The American States will employ all pacific means to settle conflicts which may arise between them.”

[Paraphrase]

Both of the said resolutions, it appears, were passed at final plenary session Havana Conference. The Conference obviously intended to go on record as opposed to all war; having condemned war as an instrument of national policy, the Conference found no difficulty in condemning aggressive war as well. It is not necessary, perhaps, to point out the difference between resolutions like these adopted at an international conference and formal treaties which are entered into with idea of preventing recourse to war as far as it is possible so to do. The objection we have to concluding a treaty limited by incorporation of an attempted definition of aggression is that, first, it seems to us to be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain working definition of aggressive war; and second, that even if it were theoretically possible to obtain such a definition, the result in practice would be to defeat largely if not entirely the main object that all of us are seeking.

Repeat to Embassies at London, Berlin and Rome.

Kellogg

12. See last paragraph for instructions to repeat to the American Embassies in Germany, Great Britain, and Italy. Also sent to the Embassy in Japan.