CONQUEST

in traditional international law, the acquisition of territory by the victorious state in a war, at the expense of the defeated state. An effective conquest takes place when physical appropriation of territory (see annexation) is followed by subjugation (legal process of transferring title). Conquest is associated with the old principle that sovereign states may resort to war at their discretion and, by military victory, achieve territorial and other gains that will be recognized as having legal validity. This doctrine of conquest and its derivative rules have been challenged in the 20th century by the development of the principle that aggressive war is contrary to international law. This change may be traced through the covenant of the League of Nations, the KelloggBriand Pact of 1928, the charters and judgments of the international military tribunals created at the end of World War II to try war criminals of the Axis powers, the Charter of the United Nations, and numerous other multipartite treaties, declarations, and resolutions. The logical corollary to the outlawry of aggressive war is the denial of legal recognition to the fruits of such war; this implication is contained in the Stimson Doctrine, enunciated by the U.S. secretary of state Henry L. Stimson in January 1932. It was subsequently affirmed by the assembly of the League of Nations and by several conferences of the American republics. The Draft Declaration on Rights and Duties of States, formulated in 1949 by the International Law Commission of the United Nations, contained (in Article XI) the rule that states are obligated not to recognize territorial acquisitions achieved by aggressive war. Conquest has thus been outlawed, but nations often ignore this principle in practice.