This collection examines the theory, practice, and application of state neutrality in international relations. With a focus on its modern-day applications, the studies in this volume analyze the global implications of permanent neutrality for Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, the European Union, and the United States. Exploring permanent neutrality’s role as a realist security model capable of rivaling collective security, the authors argue that permanent neutrality has the potential to decrease major security dilemmas on the global stage.

The essays in this book cover a fast-paced 150 years of Vatican diplomacy, starting from the fall of the Papal States in 1870 to the present day. They trace the transformation of the Vatican from a state like any other to an entity uniquely providing spiritual and moral sustenance in world affairs. In particular, the book details the Holy See’s use of neutrality as a tool and the principal statecraft in its diplomatic portmanteau. This concept of “permanent neutrality,” as codified in the Lateran Treaties of 1929, is a central concept adding to the Vatican's uniqueness and, as a result, the analysis of its policies does not easily fit within standard international relations or foreign policy scholarship. These essays consider in detail the Vatican’s history with “permanent neutrality” and its application in diplomacy toward delicate situations as, for instance, vis a vis Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan, but also in the international relations of the Cold War in debates about nuclear non-proliferation, or outreach toward the third world, including Cuba and Venezuela. The book also considers the ineluctable tension between pastoral teachings and realpolitik, as the church faces a reckoning with its history.

The law of neutrality - the corpus of legal rules regulating the relationship between belligerents and States taking no part in hostilities - assumed its modern form in a world in which the waging of war was unconstrained. The neutral State enjoyed territorial inviolability to the extent that it adhered to the obligations attaching to its neutral status and thus the law of neutrality provided spatial parameters for the conduct of hostilities. Yet the basis on which the law of neutrality developed - the extra-legal character of war - no longer exists. Does the law of neutrality continue to survive in the modern era? If so, how has it been modified by the profound changes in the law on the use of force and the law of armed conflict? This book argues that neutrality endures as a key concept of the law of armed conflict. The interaction between belligerent and nonbelligerent States continues to require legal regulation, as demonstrated by a number of recent conflicts, including the Iraq War of 2003 and the Mavi Marmara incident of 2010. By detailing the rights and duties of neutral states and demonstrating how the rules of neutrality continue to apply in modern day conflicts, this restatement of law of neutrality will be a useful guide to legal academics working on the law of armed conflict, the law on the use of force, and the history of international law, as well as for government and military lawyers seeking comprehensive guidance in this difficult area of the law.

This book offers a timely and concise academic and historical background to the concept and practice of neutrality, a relatively new phenomenon in foreign and security policy. It approaches two key questions: under what circumstances can permanent neutrality be applied, and what are the main ingredients of success and the causes of failure in applying permanent neutrality? By evaluating, comparing, and contrasting the two successful European case studies of Austria and Switzerland and the two challenging Asian case studies of Afghanistan and Laos, the author creates a new framework of analysis to explore the feasibility of reframing, adopting, and applying a policy of neutrality and jump start debates on the feasibility of the idea of "new neutrality". He opens the debate by asking whether, as neutrality successfully functioned as a conflict resolution tool during the Cold War, a reframed and adopted version of neutrality could also serve the needs of the twenty-first-century world order. This is an insightful book for all scholars, students, and policymakers workingin international relations, security studies, the history of neutrality, and Afghanistan studies.