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Austria’s Permanent Neutrality and the United Nations Organization*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2017

Alfred Verdross*
Affiliation:
University of Vienna

Extract

In the Memorandum signed at Moscow, on April 15, 1955,1 the Austrian and Soviet Delegations came to an agreement binding the Austrian Delegation to carry out the following decisions and measures:

1. Referring to the declaration made at the conference of Berlin in 1954 neither to join a military alliance nor to allow foreign military bases in its territory, the Austrian Government will make a declaration in a form which will obligate Austria internationally to practice in perpetuity a neutrality of the type maintained by Switzerland.

2. After having ratified the State Treaty, the Austrian Government will submit this declaration to the Austrian Parliament for confirmation according to the Austrian Federal Constitution.

3. The Austrian Government will take all suitable steps to obtain international recognition of this declaration.

4. The Austrian Government will welcome a guaranty by the four Powers of the independence and territorial integrity of Austria.

5. The Austrian Government will seek to obtain from the governments of France, Great Britain, and the United States of America such a guaranty.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1956

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Footnotes

*

Translated by Dr. Helene Lischka, Assistant at the Institute of International Law of the University of Vienna.

References

1 U. S. Senate Exec. G, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 40; 49 A.J.I.L. Supp. 191 (1955).

2 Sen. Exec. Q, 84th Cong., 1st Sess.; 49 A.J.I.L. Supp. 162 (1955).

3 Schweizer, Geschichte der schweizerischen Neutralität (1895); Strisower, “Zur Geschichte des Neutralitätsgedanken,” 5 Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht 184 ff. (1926); Strupp, “Neutralisation, Befriedung, Entmilitarisierung,” in the Manual of International Law 1 ff. (1933) ; Guggenheim, Traité de droit international public 549 ff. (1954), and the authors there cited.

4 Guggenheim, op. cit. 549.

5 Strupp, loc. cit. 549.

6 This obligation also arises for Austria, not from the State Treaty of May 15, 1955, because this acknowledges only the right to arm, but from a neutrality which is to be based on international law.

7 Strupp, loc. cit. 230 ff.

8 Ibid. 305 ff.

9 Bockhoff, “Ganze oder halbe Neutralität,” Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte (1938) 910 ff.; Bilfinger, “Neutralität und Presse,” Monatshefte für auswärtige Politik (1939); Pointet, La neutralité de la Suisse et la liberté de la presse (1945).

10 Guggenheim, op. cit. 541; see the report of the Schweizer Bundesrat concerning the press system from 1939–1945, F.F. 1947, I, pp. 109 ff.

11 Hambro, “Ideologische Neutralität,” 18 Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht 502 ff. (1939).

12 Guggenheim, op. cit. 541.

13 See Strisower, loc. cit. 184 ff.

14 League of Nations Official Journal, 1938, pp. 385 ff.

15 In connection with this point see Keppler, “Die neue Neutralität der Schweiz,” 18 Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht 35 ff. (1939).

16 Kelsen, The Law of the United Nations 94 (1950).

Vienna, July, 1955