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The Prevention of Aggression*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2017

Quincy Wright
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Extract

The United Nations functions in the main by persuasion rather than by coercion. The persuasive influence of its resolutions are powerful in proportion as they have the opinion of governments and peoples behind them, but the mobilization of such an opinion depends in no small degree upon the conviction of all the Members that resolutions are within the competence of United Nations organs. That competence is measured by the concept of domestic jurisdiction. The sentiment of nationalism is such that if many states believe a resolution directed toward a particular state constitutes an intervention in matters which are essentially within its domestic jurisdiction, the state addressed and other states may so resent the resolution that its effect, far from mobilizing world public opinion, will tend to disintegrate the United Nations.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , July 1956 , pp. 514 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1956

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Footnotes

*

Originally presented in a lecture to the Inter-American Academy of Comparative and International Law, Havana, Cuba, on March 8, 1956. It will be published with four other lectures on “Problems of International Law Involved in the Interpretation and Amendment of the Charter of the United Nations” in the Academy's “Cursos Monografloos.”

References

1 Repertory of Practice of United Nations Organs (United Nations, New York, 1956), Vol. 2, pp. 334 ff., 338 ff. (cited hereafter as Repertory).

2 Repertory, Vol. 2, pp. 351 ff.

3 Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 362.

4 Ibid., p. 373.

5 Charter, Arts. 43, 45.

6 Charter, Arts. 39, 40, 41, 42.

7 Repertory, Vol. 2, pp. 393 ff. See text of Military Staff Committee's Report on General Principles Governing the Organization of Armed Forces Made Available to the Security Council by Member Nations, ibid., pp. 396 ff.

8 Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Paeis (1625), “Prolegomena,” sees. 17, 18.

9 Francis Bacon, Essays on Counsels, Civil and Moral (1625), No. 19, “Of Empire.”

10 Wright, Quincy, Problems of Stability and Progress in International Relations 68 ff. (University of California Press, 1954)Google Scholar.

11 Emerich de Vattel, Le Droit des Gens (1758), III, Ch. 3, pars. 44, 49.

12 Note, June 23, 1928, Treaty for Renunciation of War, Texts (U. S. Government Printing Office, 1933), p. 57. See also discussion in 9th General Assembly, October, 1954. 9 International Organization 148 (1955).

13 Quoted by Secretary Kellogg, Address to New York Council on Foreign Relations, March, 1928, General Pact for Prevention of War (U. S. Government Printing Office, 1928), p. 64. See also Wright, Quincy, “The Concept of Aggression in International Law,” 29 A.J.I.L. 386 (1935)Google Scholar.

14 Charter, Art. 2 (4).

15 Art. 39.

16 Art. 1 (1).

17 Corbett, Percy E., “Social Basis of a Law of Nations,” 85 Hague Academy Eecneil des Conrs 517 ff. (1954)Google Scholar.

18 Covenant, Art. 11.

19 Covenant, Art. 16.

20 Wright, “The Concept of Aggression,” loc. cit., note 13 above.

21 Covenant, Art. 10.

22 Covenant, Art. 12.

23 Covenant, Art. 11.

24 Quincy Wright, “The Concept of Aggression,” loc. cit. 377, 389.

25 Wright, Quincy, “The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,” 30 A.J.I.L. 45 ff. (1936)Google Scholar; idem, “Collective Eights and Duties for the Enforcement of Treaty Obligations,” Proceedings, American Society of International Law, 1932, pp. 109 ff.

26 See reports of Kumboldt Committee on the Greco-Bulgarian case and Lytton Commission on the Manchuria case. Quincy Wright, “The Concept of Aggression,” loc. cit. 386.

27 Trial of the Major War Criminals, Nuremberg, 1947, Vol. 1, pp. 188 ff. Evidence indicates that Hitler formulated a program of aggression at meetings with his advisers beginning in October, 1937.

28 49 A.J.I.L. Supp. 21 (1955). It is believed that genuine agreement with the state in whose territory the intervention takes place should be added.

29 Wright, Quincy, “The Law of the Nuremberg Trial,” 41 A.J.I.L. 66 (1947)Google Scholar.

30 International Organization, loc. cit. note 12 above; Repertory, Vol. 2, p. 333 ff.; Art. 39, sees. 23, 59.

30a See article by Andrassy, “Uniting for Peace,” below, p. 563.

31 Repertory, “Vol. 2, p. 69, Art. 27, sec. 15.

32 Addresses by Sec. of State Dulles, March 8, 1955, 32 Dept. of State Bulletin 460 (1955), and by former President Herbert Hoover, April 21, 1955, Subcommittee of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Hearings, Eeview of United Nations Charter, p. 1743.

33 Report of International Law Commission, 1954, 49 A.J.I.L. Supp. 21–22 (1955).

34 “A state which is under an obligation not to resort to force, which is employing force against another state, and which refuses to accept an armistice proposed in accordance with a procedure whieh it has accepted to implement its no-force obligation, is an aggressor, and may be subjected to preventive, deterrent, or remedial measures by other states bound by that obligation.” Q. Wright, “The Concept of Aggression,” loc. cit. 395. “Aggression is a resort to armed force by a state when such resort has been duly determined by a means which that state is bound to accept to constitute a violation of an obligation.” Jessup, Philip, Eapporteur, Harvard Research Draft Convention on Bights and Duties of States in Case of Aggression, 33 A.J.I.L. Supp. 829 ff. (1939)Google Scholar. For quotation of uses of term “aggression” in some fifty international instruments and official statements, and citation of some hundred international obligations undertaken in general and bilateral treaties not to use armed force, ibid. 848 ff.

35 See Borchard, Edwin M., Bapporteur, Harvard Besearch in International Law, Draft Convention on Besponsibility of States, 23 A.J.I.L. Supp. 133 (1929)Google Scholar, Arts. 1, 7, 10, 11, 12.

36 A state would not be responsible for “aggression” under this definition if brigands or robbers cross its frontier to commit ordinary crimes in another country, thought it might be responsible for a want of diligence in policing its frontier. There would in this case be no breach of, or threat to, the peace. See above.

37 Quiney Wright, “Enforcement of International Law,” Proceedings, American Society of International Law, 1944, pp. 82 ff.; idem, A Study of War, Vol. 2, pp. 912 ff. (University of Chicago Press, 1942).

38 Chase, C. J., Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700 (1869).

39 Grotius, op. cit., II, Ch. 1, sec. 2, par. 2. See also Wright, Q., “The Outlawry of War,” 19 A.J.I.L. 92 (1925)Google Scholar; “The Test of Aggression in the Italo-Ethiopian War,” loc. cit. 54; A Study of War, op. cit. 886.

40 Wright, Quincy, “The Law of the Nuremberg Trial,” 41 A.J.I.L. 65 ff. (1947)Google Scholar.

41 Secretary of State Webster in the Caroline Incident (1842), J. B. Moore, Digest of International Law, Vol. 2, p. 412; Wright, Q., “Meaning of the Pact of Paris,” 27 A.J.I.L. 44 (1933)Google Scholar; “The Outlawry of War,” 19 ibid. 90 ff. (1925)Google Scholar.

42 Repertory, Vol. 2, p. 432 ff., Art. 51, sec. 10. The U. N. Atomic Energy Commission, in a report recommended by the Security Council, recognized that violation of an atomic energy control convention might be of so grave a character as to give rise to the right of self-defense under Art. 51. Ibid., secs. 14, 15.

43 There is a clear distinction between a duty of a Member to engage in collective measures arising from a Security Council decision (Art. 25) and a permission to engage in such measure arising from a recommendation by either the Security Couneil or the General Assembly. It was recognized that while the Kellogg-Briand Pact imposed no duty upon the parties to act against aggression in violation of the Paet, it did permit them to so act if the aggressor had been generally recognized. See Wright, Quincy, “Permissive Sanctions against Aggression,” 36 A.J.I.L. 103 ff. (1942)Google Scholar.

44 Trial of Major War Criminals, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 192 ff.

45 Quiney Wright, “The Concept of Aggression,” loc. cit. 381, 395, and Walter Millis, Road to War 78 (1935), quoting Secretary of State Bryan.

46 Notes 24, 25, above.

47 Quiney “Wright, “The Concept of Aggression,” loc. cit. 393.

48 81st Cong., 1st Sess., S. Con. Res. 521 (Thomas-Douglas), Hearings, Subcommittee of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Revision of the United Nations Charter, Feb. 2, 1950, p. 2 ff.

48a Report of the Collective Measures Committee, General Assembly, 6th Sess., Official Records, Supp. No. 13 (1951), p. 37.

49 Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, 7th Report, Collective Security and the United Nations, New York, July, 1951; Reports of Collective Measures Committee, General Assembly, 6th Sess., Official Records, Supp. No. 13 (A/1891), 1951; 7th Sess., Supp. No. 17 (A/2215), 1952.

50 Quincy Wright, “Collective Security in the Light of the Korean Experience,” Proceedings, American Society of International Law, 1951, p. 172; reprinted in Wright, Quincy, Problems of Stability and Progress in International Relations (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1954), p. 103 Google Scholar.

51 33 Dept. of State Bulletin 171 (1955).