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Traditional Neutrality Revisited

Law, Theory and Case Studies


Elizabeth Chadwick

This volume explores the extent to which frameworks of tradional neutrality might remain useful in modern contexts of peace and war, notwithstanding the technical prohibition of war in the Charter of the United Nations. Traditional neutrality constituted a system through which non-belligerent states could remain at peace with warring states, and thereby avoid attack and continue peacetime trading relations. The essays here collected deal with the rules of neutrality as they had developed and operated generally by the outbreak of World War 1, those variations in and alternatives to traditional neutrality which arose in the aftermath of World War 1, and particular aspects of the legacy of neutrality which continue to survive in the post-1945 era. It is argued that the operable rules of traditional neutrality foundered in the face of industrialized warfare, but that the retreat from the 'logic' of neutrality in the modern era has been premature.

Guarded Neutrality

Diplomacy and Internment in the Netherlands during the First World War


Susanne Wolf

Traditionally isolated from mainstream European affairs, in 1914 the Dutch had no major allegiances that bound them to any one side of the conflict. Geographically and economically caught between two of the major belligerents, Great Britain and Germany, the Netherlands was constantly vulnerable to attack from either side. In adopting a position of neutrality at the beginning of the war, the Dutch took a huge gamble. The internment of approximately 50,000 foreign troops in the Netherlands, some for almost the entire four years of the war, provided an important showcase for the Dutch Government to demonstrate its adherence to international law and its impartiality towards the all of the belligerents.

Defending Neutrality

The Netherlands prepares for War, 1900-1925


Wim Klinkert

The small neutral states of Europe have until now only marginally been included in the historiography of the First World War. This volume deals in depth with The Netherlands, and specifically its war preparations. Being a small country close to the battlefield of the Western Front, it could not be sure its neutrality would be repected by the warring states. How did the country prepare itself militarily and how did these preparations differ from the way the warring states adjusted to the reality of modern, total war? Was modern, technological warfare even possible for small states and if not, in what way could it ensure its survival when the worst came to worst? This volume analyses technological innovation, intelligence and ideas on the societal and political impact of modern warfare in The Netherlands before, during and after the Great War.

Link, Christoph


Robert W. Smith

Section in Chapter 3: From the Confederation to the Civil War Adams, Donald R., Jr. "American Neutrality and Prosperity, 1793-1808: A Reconsideration." Journal of Economic History 40 (December 1980): 713-37. Adams finds that the only real benefits of neutrality for the American economy were to the

Neutrality as a Policy Choice for Small/Weak Democracies

Learning from the Belgian Experience

Michael F. Palo

In Neutrality as a Policy Choice for Small/Weak Democracies: Learning from the Belgian Experience, Michael F. Palo has three main objectives. First, he employs a counterfactual approach to examine the hypothesis that had permanent neutrality not been imposed on Belgium in 1839, it would have pursued neutrality anyway until war broke out in 1914. Secondly, he analyses why, after abandoning obligatory neutrality during World War I, the Belgians adopted voluntary neutrality in October 1936. Finally, he seeks to use the historical Belgian case study to test specific International Relations’ Theories and to contribute to Small State Studies, especially the behaviour of small/weak democracies in the international system.

Elizabeth Brake

[ JMP 1.3 (2004) 293-309] ISSN 1740-4681 © SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) Rawls and Feminism: What Should Feminists Make of Liberal Neutrality? E LIZABETH B RAKE Department of Philosophy University of Calgary 2500 University Drive NW Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 Canada brake

Diluted Liberalisms and Emaciated Neutralities

Reaggregating Alternative Disaggregations

Michael Freeden

tools she puts at the disposal of political theorists. Rather, it addresses two areas relating to the political thought-practices liberalism exhibits: the work the liberal theory she evokes does and does not discharge within the broader sphere of liberalism; and, briefly, the viability of neutrality

Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz

In the Wake of the Salt Ships Case Neutrality before the early seventeenth century is a contested concept. If we follow the legal and international relations’ understanding of neutrality, which builds upon the concept formulated by Hugo Grotius and other seventeenth-century thinkers, that concept


Marco Wyss

Great Britain was neutral Switzerland's main supplier of heavy weaponry during the early Cold War. Marco Wyss analyses this armaments relationship against the background of Anglo-Swiss relations between 1945 and 1958, and thereby assesses the role of arms transfers, neutrality and Britain, as well as the two countries' political, economic and military relations.
By using multi-archival research, the author discovers "traits of specialness" in the Anglo-Swiss relationship, analyses the incentives for Berne's weapons purchases and London's arms sales, sheds new light on the Cold War arms transfer system and the motivations of the participating states, and questions the sustainability of neutrality during the East-West conflict, as well as Britain's role from a western neutral and small power perspective.