ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the process by which the law of neutrality was established as an institution of positive general international law. According to the theory of neutrality as presented by eighteenth-century writers, third States, even if they had not concluded neutrality treaties with belligerents, could become neutral States and enjoyed the right not to be involved in war on the condition that they abstained from assisting either belligerent. This theory was accepted in the practice of States from the end of the eighteenth century to the nineteenth century, and the law of neutrality was established as an institution of positive general international law. Since the end of the eighteenth century, it became common for third States to remain neutral without concluding neutrality treaties with belligerents, by unilaterally issuing a declaration or proclamation of neutrality, and enacting municipal laws called “neutrality laws”.1 As Miele observes as a result of examining the practice of States at the end of the eighteenth century, “in this way, the constitutive fact of the relation of neutrality ceased to be the mutual intention of belligerents and neutrals, but the establishment of it now depends the unilateral intention of the State outside the conflict”.2
