To ensure their security in a world dominated by competing Great Powers, states have the choice between an alliance or a neutral position. If we consider the world as governed by brute force, neutrality (the choice not to participate in a conflict between two or more other polities) would merely be a factual condition, dependent on the big players’ goodwill. Even today the ongoing war in Ukraine and the geopolitical tensions between China and the US pose existential challenges to third countries and their positioning, demonstrating the persistent vitality of the concept of neutrality in the 21st century. This equally reverberates on third states’ nationals and other non-state actors. The articulation of the set of rights and duties associated with neutrality has a long pedigree in legal history. The rhetorical use of legal arguments is intertwined with the protection of one’s territory and population but also with the interdependence that fosters trade, especially at sea, connecting markets, spaces and peoples. Law and power are never disconnected in matters related to neutrality, a mutual and reciprocal influence of both tenets is usually present.
This symposium aims to contribute new insights to the long-term history of neutrality, focusing on its ‘pre modern’ dimension broadly understood (ca. 1400-1800). Indeed, the law of neutrality started to emerge in the Early Modern Age through the practices and beliefs of the European state system, but also from its interactions with non-European normative and cultural systems. Different but complementary angles of approach can be used to understand this phenomenon: e.g. diplomatic history, IR history, political history, economic history and legal history. Throughout history, polities as well as private actors have interpreted neutrality in flexible and divergent ways, e.g. proposing a proactive-assertive approach or a more passive and inward looking one.
Benefiting from multiple disciplinary perspectives, the symposium takes into consideration both the theory and the practice of neutrality, advancing our knowledge of the often-contested conceptualisation of legal regimes at sea as well as on land. Such a conceptualisation depended on the interaction between situations of peace and diverged across different temporal and spatial coordinates. The symposium participants will also unravel the recurrent misalignment between legal-dogmatic approaches and practical uses of knowledge, as well as its intellectual and bureaucratic production. As such, the symposium participates in a broader turn to bottom-up approaches in the history of international law, a booming field of interdisciplinary research.
Themes: The conference explores many facets of pre-modern neutrality. We invite twenty-minute papers on various aspects of this phenomena. Suggested paper topics include, but are not limited to:
- Aspects related to maritime neutrality (axis 1), e.g. privateering, contraband, blockade and strategies developed by private actors (e.g. merchants, but also bankers) or urban authorities to align their interests with the most favourable interpretation of state policy.
- Aspects related to neutrality on land (axis 2), e.g. innocent passage, neutralisation and strategies developed by private actors, urban authorities or seignorial power brokers to obtain the most favourable outcome of their interactions with both belligerents and the neutral polities norms and actions.
- The conceptualisation of neutrality in legal doctrine, political and economic thought.
- The practice of neutrality: military and diplomatic aspects, but also case law, prize papers and private business archives.
- Small power neutrality, as a balancing element in the European or extra-European state system
Deadlines: paper proposal should be sent by 1st October 2024. Draft versions of the papers should be sent to the conveners by 15th March 2025 to allow their circulation among participants.
Publication: The conference papers (in English or French) will be submitted to a special issue with a peer reviewed journal which provides open access publication.
Confirmed keynote speakers: Prof. Silvia Marzagalli, Université Côte d’Azur & Prof. Éric Schnakenbourg, Nantes Université.
The symposium will be held at the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library (Antwerp) on 8th-9th May 2025. It will be a relatively small event in order to enable in depth discussions. Applications for participation, including a 250-word abstract and a 100-word brief biography should be sent to stefano.cattelan@vub.be by 1st October 2024. The conference organization is willing to consider funding demands for travel and accommodation from scholars without an own bench fee or project means, or from the Global South, depending on the means available. The conference will be held at the historical building of the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library in the city centre of Antwerp, which is close to the city’s Central Station and easily reachable from Brussels-Zaventem Airport by train.
Contact Information
dr. Stefano Cattelan
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Research Group Contextual Research in Law
Office B 4.14
Pleinlaan 2
1050 ELSENE (Brussels)
BELGIUM
(postdoctoral researcher, FWO Junior Fundamental Research Project G016122N)