NEUTRALITÀ. — According to its etymological meaning, n. signifies an impartial attitude between contending parties; in the specific sense attributed to it by international law, the juridical condition of a State that does not participate in a war between other States, toward which it assumes an impartial attitude. N. is always connected with an existing state of war, so that it does not apply when other violent means are employed that do not produce such a state, such as reprisals in time of peace, embargo, and so forth. As such, it implies abstention from hostilities and the positive continuation of peaceful relations
with all the belligerents, though subject to particular restrictions imposed by the requirements of war.
N. may be voluntary or contractual, according as it depends either on the simple sovereign determination of a State or on a prior convention; particular, if it concerns a specific conflict, or general, if it refers to all conflicts; temporary or perpetual, according as it is limited in time or not; disarmed or armed, if the State maintains contingents for every possible eventuality or remains disarmed. Particular importance has been attached to perpetual n., which has the effect of the so-called neutralization of a country, the object of a convention whereby, while one State undertakes to remain neutral in any conflict and toward any State, the others undertake to recognize and respect the juridical condition thus created, as, for example, occurred on various occasions with Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. For the state of n. to arise, with its corresponding rights and duties, neither a declaration of war and its notification to the neutral by the belligerents, nor an explicit notification by the State intending to remain outside the conflict, is in itself required, although the latter is commonly made.
The concept of n. is modern. Ancient Catholic doctrine did not know II. Based on the distinction between just and unjust war and on the principle that the belligerent in a just war exercises an act of vindictive justice against the violator of the law, it could not conceive an impartial attitude toward wrong and right and therefore admitted the obligation to grant transitus innocens to the belligerent waging a just war, and to deny it to his adversary. The theory became widespread because of the influence of a celebrated text by St. Augustine, who based the justification of Israel’s conquest of the land of the Amorites on the ground that they had not granted the harmless passage requested by Moses: « innosus enim transitus negabatur, qui iure humanae societatis aequissimo patere debebat » (In Heptinercum, 54). Grotius essentially repeats the doctrine previously established, while acknowledging the need for guarantees so that the passage might actually be harmless. The concept of n. begins to develop from the impossibility of obtaining these guarantees, being foreshadowed by Pufendorf and clearly formulated by Yattel; after the seventeenth century it would be developed and systematized as an institution of international law. This evolution was accompanied by the gradual abandonment of the distinction between just and unjust war and by the ascendancy of the opposing positivist conception, which came to regard war as an act that is always lawful and, consequently, impartiality toward the belligerents as a political duty, the parties to the conflict exercising a power recognized by international law.
N. nevertheless requires a different theoretical justification. Even while maintaining the classical distinction between just and unjust war, in accordance with the demands of morality and law, one cannot deny the difficulty faced by a third State in determining on which side justice lies; moreover, even assuming that it succeeds in doing so, one must not lose sight of the authority’s obligation to avert the evils that would befall the community if it participated in the conflict. A reason of the common good therefore justifies n.; in addition to the difficulty noted, there is the absence of any obligation to investigate the motives that led the belligerents to resort to armed conflict.
The duties and rights connected with the state of n. are summarized (Fifth Hague Convention, 1907) in the immunity of neutral territory from every hostile act by the belligerents: the passage of troops, munitions, and supplies; the installation of means of communication; or the recruitment of combatants. The neutral is required to ensure that all this is observed, but not to prevent the passage across its frontier of isolated individuals, the export and transit of anything that may be useful to the parties in dispute, or the use of means of communication belonging to it; with regard to the latter, if it establishes restrictions, it must apply them in a con-form manner. It is responsible only for acts committed within its territory, and not for those that its subjects may commit abroad. Other rules concern the treatment of military personnel who have crossed the frontier, who must be disarmed and interned, and of the sick and wounded, whose passage it may permit in order to reach their country of origin. It retains the right to repel any attack on its n., even by the use of arms, without this being regarded as a hostile act. It is not contrary to n. to place one’s good offices at the disposal of the belligerents.
A change in the concept of n. nevertheless took place beginning with the establishment of the League of Nations, whose Covenant, in art. 16, required all members to provide one another with mutual assistance in applying economic and financial sanctions against the State that had resorted to war, and to take the necessary measures to facilitate passage through their territory to the military forces that would participate in the common action to enforce the obligations assumed toward the League. An equivalent provision is contained in the Charter of the United Nations, which, in art. 43, commits all members of the organization to place at the disposal of the Security Council, in the event that it has decided upon collective action, the armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the maintenance of peace. Without abolishing the Hague Convention of 1907, which remains in force for States that do not belong to the international organization, both the Covenant and the Charter of the United Nations, by introducing a mandatory rule of mutual assistance and reserving the right of passage—both incompatible with the concept of n.—have brought about a profound juridical innovation, making the state of perpetual n. impossible, at least for members. The basis of this innovation, which partly returns to the former position of Catholic doctrine, is the principle of international solidarity in maintaining peace, which influenced the very creation of the two organizations. An excellent principle, if it were applied consistently to all the questions that customarily divide peoples and cause conflicts.