What is the Kellogg-brand act?

The Kellogg-Briand Pact is an international treaty signed in Paris on August 27, 1928. Also known as the Pact of Paris, it renounces war as an instrument of national policy except in cases of self-defense. All the world's major powers of the era eventually acceded to the Pact including, after much opposition, the United States in 1929.

The idea is believed to have come originally from Aristide Briand, French foreign minister from 1925 to 1932 when the negotiations were undertaken by U.S. Secretary of State Kellogg, Briand's fellow laureate of the 1927 Nobel Peace Prize.