CYIL Vol. 5, 2014

THE DEFINITION OF AGGRESSION AND THE USE OF FORCE definition of aggression, was, on 14 December 1939, even expelled from the LN in response to its invasion of Finland. G. Scelle declared as early as 1936 and reaffirmed in 1954 that under positive international law, with all its deficiencies, recourse to force constitutes the “crime of aggression”. This broad concept of Scelle’s of aggression equating every recourse to violence with war and every war with “aggression” (all recourse to violence = war; all war = aggression) was critically discussed by J. Stone. 12 C. A. Pompe characterized “aggression as the use or imminent threat of force on the part of a State, whether acting openly or indirectly, which leaves the State against which it is directed nothing other than military means to preserve its territorial integrity or political independence, or which disturbs the international status quo. Some prominent lawyers, such as P. Bastid, V. V. Pella, P. J. Alfaro and others, saw the Soviet draft of 1933 of inestimable value. 13 President Roosevelt in his statement of 23 December 1933 required “a simple declaration that no nation will permit any of its armed forces to cross its own borders into the territory of another nation”. In his view “such an act would be regarded by humanity as an act of aggression...” 14 Q. Wright wrote in 1935 that “an aggressor is a state which may be subjected to preventive, deterrent or remedial measures by other State because of its violation of an obligation not to resort to force”. In another place he observed that “an aggressor is 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 which it has accepted to implement its no-force obligation”. 15 Signs of aggression were enumerated in an opinion which was jointly submitted by the Belgian, Brazilian, French and Swedish delegation in the Permanent Advisory Commission of the LN in 1923. According to this document signs of aggression would appear even in such acts as organisation on paper of industrial mobilisation or actual military mobilisation. Among factors on which governments could base the impression of an aggressive intention were mentioned the political attitude of the possible aggressor, his propaganda, the attitude of his press and population or his policy on the international market. 16 According to Art. 1 of the Draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance of 1923 a war should not be considered as a “war of aggression” if waged by a state which is party to a dispute and has accepted the unanimous recommendation of the Council or the verdict of the PCIJ. In Art. 10 (1) of the draft of Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes of 2 October 1924 “every State which resorts to war in violation of the undertakings contained in the Covenants or in the present Protocol is an aggressor.” Between the two world wars, a number of cases actually occurred which were generally thought to involve aggression. The 12 Stone, J., supra note 1, pp. 7-9. 13 Ibid. , p. 8-9. 14 Ibid ., p. 215. 15 Wright, Q., The Concept of Aggression in International Law, AJIL 1935, N. 1, pp. 373, 375, 381. 16 Stone, J., supra note 1, p. 209; see Appendix of selected draft definitions.

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