ABSTRACT
As stated in the Introduction, some scholars such as Grewe, Miele and Oeter have pointed out the fact that treaties called “neutrality treaties” were concluded between States in Europe from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and in State practice during this period, the status of neutrality was not a status automatically established as a result of the outbreak of war: rather, it was a status contractually and individually created by a neutrality treaty concluded between a belligerent and a third State, i.e. a State not participating in the war. The studies by these scholars should be highly regarded for focusing on neutrality treaties, which have been overlooked by most other scholars, and for identifying the significance of such treaties in the historical development of the law of neutrality.1
