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• Author: Craig Forcese
• Pages: 191-196

191

Chapter 24

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There was the necessity of meeting a great and imminent danger —

an overt attack by members of a valy superior force, capable,

if not nipped in the bud of driving the Japanese into the sea . . .

What else was to be done? There was no inant for deliberation —

the open attack was launched upon them.

— jaPanese GovernMent (1932)1

S   obligations under the League Coven-

ant and the Pact of Paris in the 1930s. There was a destructive

war between Paraguay and Bolivia in 1933, and, more fam-

ously, the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Other examples of what

was soon called “aggression” included Peru in Colombia, Germany

in Czechoslovakia, and Russia in Finland.2 In each instance, various

constellations of great powers condemned the aggressor state for

its violation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the League of Nations

framework. They also stressed that the territory acquired through

these violations would not be recognized as constituting part of the

aggressor state. The most famous expression of this concept came

as the “Stimson Doctrine,” named after the US secretary of state.

Issued in 1932, the Doctrine — essentially, a position taken in a dip-

lomatic cable — asserted that the United States did “not intend to

recognize any situation, treaty or agreement which may be brought

about by means contrary to the covenants and obligations of the Pact

of Paris.”3 This concept — now lying at the diamond core of inter-

national law — constituted the f‌lipside of the Pact’s renunciation of

war as policy: if war was unlawful, so too were its fruits.4