Austrian Foreign Policy in Historical Context by Anton Pelinka & Gunter Bischof & Michael Gehler

Author:Anton Pelinka & Gunter Bischof & Michael Gehler [Pelinka, Anton & Bischof, Gunter & Gehler, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781351315142
Google: t_hADwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 36984761
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

The Concept of Neutrality and Cooperative Security

Neutrality is a concept for avoiding involvement in wars with other states. Non-involvement in war-fighting was interpreted differently by neutral states and other states that were interested in becoming neutral themselves. The permanently neutral state must credibly arrange its peacetime foreign policy in order to avoid involvement in future conflicts. On 18 October 1907, the essential rights and duties of neutral states in wartime were codified for the first time in the Fifth and Thirteenth Hague Conventions. A neutral power is obliged to prevent by force any attempts to violate its neutrality. Further obligations are nonparticipation in war and military coalitions, impartiality toward belligerents, and agreement not to provide mercenaries for belligerents. Neutral states’ foreign policy has to be arranged in such a way as to minimize the possibility of becoming entangled in any war. In order to avoid becoming a security risk to its neighbors, a neutral state must provide for an adequate internal defense. Neutrality can only be declared voluntarily, not by force.

This concept was qualified and restricted in 1945 after creating the United Nations (UN) to maintain international peace and security, and to that end to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace; and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles ofjustice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace (Charter of the United Nations, Chapter I, Article 1). Therefore, “all members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.” This Article 2(5) of the UN Charter forbids impartiality when peace and security are endangered. The system of classical war parties of the Hague conventions was replaced by a system of collective security that shall guarantee peace and stability.

During the Cold War, the UN system was not able to prevent wars, as the United States and the Soviet Union fought for global influence. At the beginning of the Cold War, many European states decided to become neutral—as did Austria, Finland, and Sweden—due to their geopolitical situation between East and West. The neutral status of Austria—declared by the Austrian Parliament through the Federal Constitutional Law on Austria’s neutrality on 26 October 1955—was a condition for the withdrawal of post-war Soviet and allied occupation forces. This Constitutional Law assumed that Austrian neutrality would be modelled on that of Switzerland. But quite soon, Austria’s neutrality differed from that of Switzerland; as early as December 1955, Austria joined the United Nations. Ireland proclaimed its military neutrality while struggling for independence from Great Britain. All of these neutral countries became members of the United Nations. The opinion in these states was that UN membership would cause no damage to their neutrality.

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