The Swiss experience with neutrality and its relevance for Malta

Abstract

The permanent neturality of Switzerland is the product of a long historical evolution. It began as a practice and eventually became a legal status embodied in international legal instruments and recognized by the international community. Malta's neutrality is due to rather recent development and is based on a policy decision later embodied in an agreement with Italy and a constitutional provision. It owes as much to the ideas of non-alignment as to the concept of perpetual neutrality in a precise legal sense. There may thus be some advantage in relating the Swiss experience in order to ace what lessons Malta may be able to draw from it as regards her own external policies.