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The position of those states which not only remain neutral during all wars between third parties but accept no commitments in peacetime (alliances or military base agreements, for example) which might lead them into belligerency in some future contingency. This peacetime aloofness from military commitments might, as in the case of Sweden, be based on a purely unilateral political position which can, as a result, be changed unilaterally. Alternatively, it can derive from an international obligation. The paradigm case of this kind of permanent neutrality, sometimes regarded as the only true version, is Switzerland, at least since the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Here it was declared that ‘The neutrality and integrity of Switzerland and her independence from any foreign influence are in the interest of European politics as a whole’. Switzerland did not join the UN until September 2002. Austria also, by treaty, became a permanent neutral in 1955, but nonetheless decided to join the UN in the same year. |
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