There is a widespread agreement in modern democracies that a state should not force its citizens to lead lives they do not endorse themselves. It is also generally agreed that state acts should not be justified by appealing to the authority of religious books. Such claims are often reformulated as holding that state action should be neutral with respect to the ideals of the good life, or that the justification of state acts should be neutral with respect to basic beliefs. But does the use of the term neutral add anything important to the original wording? Does it point to a common principle - a principle of state neutrality (PSN) - that unites such judgments? If it does, what normative work PSN is supposed to do? What is its basis? What are the things towards which it requires the acts of the relevant type to be neutral? Such questions call for a theory of neutrality. The theory of neutrality has its natural home in the liberal tradition. Liberalism had a neutralist bent since its beginnings. But a systematic account of PSN was not laid out before the 1970s and '80s when John Rawls and others restated the foundations of liberal theory. While particular neutrality judgments are widely accepted, the general conception of liberal neutrality elicited strong critical reactions. Some of the critiques took liberalism's commitment to neutrality as evidence that the liberal view of the individual, society, and politics is deeply flawed. Others attacked liberal neutrality as reflecting a mistaken interpretation of what liberalism really is about. The debate subsided in the last decade or so, without settling, however, on a standard view. State neutrality remains a controversial idea. This article tries to spell out its main tenets and to explain how they hang together. It examines the central objections, and explores revisions that may enhance the theory's defensibility.
Reprinted from America's interests as affected by the European War. Vol. LX of The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Philadelphia, July, 1915. Publication no. 916. ; Mode of access: Internet.
[EN]The Spanish government maintained a benevolent neutrality policy towards the Entente Powers during the First World War. Liberal and Conservative cabinets decided it was the only position consistent with their country's traditionally friendly relations with Great Britain and France. ; Peer reviewed
In dieser Dissertation argumentiere ich (gegen John Rawls und andere) erstens dafür, dass perfektionistische Gründe gute Gründe für Gesetze sind, die ein Staat erlässt, ohne, zweitens, die These zu teilen, die Joseph Raz in The Morality of Freedom vertritt, dass nur die Gesetze eines Staates legitim sind, die mit perfektionistischen Gründen gerechtfertigt werden können – weil alle anderen die Autonomie der Bürger notwendig verletzen würden. Im ersten Punkt halte ich den Perfektionismus für die Standardposition, und die gängigen liberalen Argumente für einen neutralen Staat überzeugen nicht, egal ob sie als ökumenische oder nicht-neutrale vertreten werden. Die ökumenischen Argumente, wie sie etwa bei Rawls und Bruce Ackerman zu finden sind, überzeugen nicht, weil sich ihre behauptete Neutralität letztlich als schädlich parteiisch erweist. Die nicht-neutralen Argumente, die unter anderem von Rawls und Charles Larmore angeführt werden, reichen nicht aus, um die Notwendigkeit eines Prinzips der staatlichen Neutralität zu begründen. Und zwar aus verschiedenen Gründen: Einer dieser Gründe ist, dass die Berufung der Konsequenzialisten auf den Wert der Autonomie übersieht, dass der Wert der Autonomie in Wertkonflikten anderen Werten nicht überlegen ist, und ein zweiter Grund wäre, dass Rawls in seinem Appell an die "Bürden des Urteils", etwa in seinem Buch Political Liberalism, eher voraussetzt als zeigt, dass Respekt vor der Autonomie der Bürger die staatliche Förderung des Guten ausschließt. Zu dem zweiten Punkt mache ich geltend, dass es unerheblich ist, ob die These von Raz, dass Autonomie wertlos wird, wenn den Bürgern nicht ausreichend gute Optionen an Lebensformen zur Verfügung stehen, zwischen denen sie wählen können, überzeugend ist oder nicht, weil daraus nicht folgt, dass der Staat das Gute in jedem möglichen politischen System fördern muss. Es ist einfach nicht der Fall, dass die Zahl der den Staatsbürgern offenstehenden wertvollen Lebensformen unter eine Schwelle fällt, die den Wert der Autonomie erst möglich macht, sobald der Staat das Gute nicht fördert. ; I argue, in this dissertation, first, that, contrary to the views of John Rawls and others, governments are entitled to make policy on the basis of perfectionist judgements, but second, that the claim, in particular as it is argued for in Joseph Raz's The Morality of Freedom, that governments must make policy on a perfectionist basis, failing which the autonomy of citizens will be damaged, cannot be sustained. I argue the first point on the grounds that perfectionism is the default position, and that standard liberal arguments, which I categorise as either ecumenical or non-neutral, for a principle of state neutrality fail. The ecumenical arguments, which I discover in the writings of Rawls and Bruce Ackerman, fail because their purported neutrality turns out to be damagingly partisan. The non-neutral arguments, which I discover in the writings of, amongst others, Rawls and Charles Larmore, fall short of establishing the necessity of a principle of state neutrality for a number of widely-differing reasons, which include, for example, that a consequentialist appeal to the good of autonomy cannot establish that the good of autonomy trumps all other goods, or any other combination of goods, in all conflicts of goods which might arise, and that Rawls's appeal to the burdens of judgement, founds in his Political Liberalism, assumes rather than shows that respect for the autonomy of citizens rules out state promotion of the good. I argue the second point on the grounds that although Raz is correct in arguing that autonomy is of no value unless the options between which citizens can choose are worthwhile forms of life, it does not follow that the state must promote the good in any and every possible political dispensation, as it is simply not the case that, in general, unless the state promotes the good, the number of valuable forms of life available to citizens will fall below the threshold which is necessary for their autonomy to be worth having.
For nearly a century, state regulators played an important role in telecommunications regulation. The 1934 Communications Act gave the Federal Communications Commission authority to regulate interstate telephone service, but explicitly left intrastate calls—which comprised 98% of Depression-era telephone traffic—to state public utility commissions. By the late 2000s, however, as landline telephony faded to obscurity, scholars and policymakers alike recognized that the era of comprehensive state telecommunications regulation had largely come to an end.Perhaps surprisingly, however, the first years of the Trump Administration have seen a resurgence in state telecommunications regulation—driven not by state institutional concerns, but by policy disagreements over net neutrality. This Article addresses the broader federalism questions raised by this net neutrality clash. Part I provides an overview of telecommunications federalism from the 1934 Communications Act through the present day, looking at the division of federal and state jurisdiction over traditional telephone service, wireless telephony, and information services. Part II examines the various steps that states have taken to regulate broadband providers' network management practices in response to the Commission's Restoring Internet Freedom Order and assesses the likelihood that these initiatives will survive a federal preemption challenge. Part III looks more broadly at the question of state authority to regulate broadband network management practices. It discusses the statutory and constitutional limits on state power to regulate broadband providers. Once the sphere of potential authority is defined, Part IV addresses how states should exercise this power and highlights alternative tools available for states that wish to shape the net neutrality debate.
A meta dicembre 2017, la Federal Communications Commission (Fee) degli Stati Uniti ha votato per riclassificare gli Internet Service Providers (isp, cioe fornitori di servizi che connettono Ie imprese e gli individui a internet: compagnie telefoniche, linee via cavo eec.) come servizi di informazione anziche come common carriers, «pub" blici vettori» (quindi assimilati ad altn fornitori di servizi pubblici). Benche se ne fosse discusso almeno dal 2003, la Fee e 2;iunta soltanto nel 2015, sotto 1'amministrazione Obama, alia classificazione del providers come vettori pubblici. Gli attuali componenri della Fee, la cui maggioranza rispecchia gli orientamenti dell'amministrazione Trump, hanno sceko di tornare alia precedente designazione come «servizi di infer mazione». Questa decisione, che ha suscitato pareri controversi nei circoli politici americani, offre 1'occasione per esaminare come Ie imprese affrondno 1'impatto delle nuove tecnologie.
This article is a fundamental reappraisal of the rules of maritime neutrality, including blockade, contraband and maritime zones. It is one of the most comprehensive reassessments of this area of the law since R. W. Tucker's seminal work in this publication in 1955. As well as defining and stating the rules of maritime neutrality, the piece offers recommendations for future development of the law which drafters of State law of armed conflict manuals may wish to consider.
This article discusses the law of neutrality as it pertains to belligerent operations in and through outer space as well as belligerent outer space operations involving the territory and national airspace of neutral States. As far as the latter is concerned, the traditional law of neutrality is fully applicable. Accordingly, international law prohibits belligerents from launching space objects from neutral territory or through neutral national airspace. While neutral States may not provide belligerents with outer space assets or the use of communications infrastructure located in their territories, they are not obliged to prevent their nationals from providing any of the belligerents with militarily relevant information, such as satellite imagery. As far as belligerent operations in or through outer space are concerned, there is no room for the law of neutrality. The law of neutrality is closely linked to territorial sovereignty and therefore inapplicable in outer space and on celestial bodies. The status of neutral outer space objects, whether governmental or private, is governed by the law of targeting and, if at all applicable, by prize law. If they are not contributing to the belligerents' military actions (and if they are not used for non-neutral services), they may be neither attacked nor captured.
This Article traces two interwoven jurisprudential genealogies. The first of these focuses on the emergence of neutrality in speech and press doctrine. Content and viewpoint neutrality are now the bedrock principles of modern First Amendment law. Yet the history of these concepts is largely untold and otherwise misunderstood. Scholars usually assume that expressive-freedom doctrine was mostly undeveloped before the early twentieth century and that neutrality was central to its modern rebirth. But this view distorts and sometimes even inverts historical perspectives. For most of American history, the governing paradigm of expressive freedom was one of limited toleration, focused on protecting speech within socially defined boundaries. The modern embrace of content and viewpoint neutrality, it turns out, occurred only in the 1960s as the Supreme Court merged earlier strands of rights jurisprudence in novel ways. The emergence of neutrality, this Article shows, was more gradual, more contested, and more contingent than we now assume. Recovering this history reveals the novelty of the modern neutrality paradigm and casts new light on the history of other First Amendment concepts, like prior restraints, low-value speech, and overbreadth.To understand these developments, it is necessary to trace a second doctrinal genealogy that focuses on the concept of fundamental rights. Older views of expressive freedom were embedded in a different conceptual framework for thinking about rights. And once again, the role of neutrality within this tradition was radically different. Today, neutrality is ubiquitous in rights discourse, reflecting the prevailing view that rights are domains in which people can make their own moral choices. Thus defined, rights need not be absolute, but the government must at least maintain neutrality with respect to values. As this Article reveals, however, this neutrality-based view of rights emerged well into the twentieth century, reflecting a transmogrified synthesis of earlier ideas.Recovering these older paradigms powerfully illustrates how deeply our current perspectives shape the way that we view the Constitution. Principles that appear to be inherent to the very idea of expressive freedom or the very idea of rights, it turns out, are refracted through a modern lens. Integrating history into rights jurisprudence thus poses a substantial and unresolved challenge, warranting further engagement by scholars and judges. On its own, history cannot dictate whether our approach to rights needs adjustment. But it can refocus attention on values and choices that modern doctrine too often ignores.
In a security environment characterized by increasing tension and geopolitical competition, studying neutrality provides an opportunity to explore a set of political-legal mechanisms and concepts, which historically have had protective and escalation mitigation functions and effects. This report provides a historical and technological background to neutrality and a breakdown of the legal debates regarding the application of the law of neutrality in cyberspace. ; In einem Sicherheitsumfeld, das durch zunehmende Spannungen und geopolitischen Wettbewerb gekennzeichnet ist, kann mittels Studieren der Neutralität eine Reihe von politisch-rechtlichen Mechanismen und Konzepten untersucht werden, die in der Vergangenheit Schutzfunktionen eingenommen sowie eskalationsmindernde Wirkungen ausgeübt hatten. Dieser Bericht bietet einen historischen und technologischen Hintergrund zur Neutralität und eine Aufschlüsselung der rechtlichen Debatten über die Anwendung des Neutralitätsgesetzes im Cyberspace.
International audience ; One year after its inception, the Dynamic Coalition on Network Neutrality (DC NN) renews its commitment towards the enrichment of the Internet policy debate, by publishing its second annual report. The publication of the first DC NN report played an inspiring role for policy makers, particularly at the European level. In fact, the work of the dynamic coalition directly inspired the very definition of the network neutrality principle, enshrined in the European Parliament's first reading of the proposed "Connected Continent" regulation . Similar to the first DC NN report, the 2014 Report seems particularly timely and aims at providing a meaningful contribution to the ongoing net neutrality debates. The 2014 report offers a collection of independent analyses exploring existing and proposed regulatory approaches to net neutrality and scrutinising the economic justifications that support the network neutrality principle.
"Democratization" and "gender-neutrality" are two concepts commonly used in recent studies on language variation. While both concepts link linguistic phenomena to sociocultural changes, the extent to which they overlap and/or interact has not been studied in detail. In particular, not much is known about how linguistic changes related to democratization and gender-neutrality spread across registers or varieties of English, as well as whether speakers are aware of the changes that are taking place. In this paper we review the main theoretical issues regarding these concepts and relate them to the main findings in the articles in this issue, all of which study lexical and grammatical variation from a corpus-based perspective. Taken together, they help unveil some of the conscious and unconscious mechanisms that operate at the interface between democratization and gender-neutrality. ; Peer reviewed
Neutrality is a concept of international law, which the Swiss Confederation adopted in 1815. Its current idea goes beyond the legal requirements set by The Hague Convention of 1907. The convention comprises mainly of territorial definitions relevant for conventional warfare. Switzerland, on the other hand, defines the idea of neutrality more broadly. Considerations on its cyber neutrality policy could also be applied to other countries that claim to be neutral or impartial. We take Switzerland as an example for a case study, as it has the longest continuous tradition of neutrality. Due to the non-territorial character of cyber conflict, the conventional practices of Switzerland's neutrality and foreign policy are confronted with challenges: Major challenges are posed by the clash between national interest and the self-restrictions of neutrality policy. The national interest demands a strong cyber security capacity and an effective defence capability. However, this might only be achieved by means of international collaboration and knowledge exchange. This collides with the principle of impartiality and non-intervention in international conflict, a core-concept of neutrality. A new concept for neutrality in cyberspace has to be developed, which builds on the foundation of Switzerland's tradition as a neutral country in the international community. This paper outlines the inherent problem of neutrality and cyber defence. We describe Switzerland's neutral tradition, how it has developed since 1815 and its current characteristics, described as active neutrality policy. Furthermore, we illustrate Switzerland's involvement in cyber activities and outline where these involvements reach their limits. Finally, an outlook on future implementations of neutrality policy is made.
The complex historical environment, in which constitutional law and policy were established, has at times made it difficult for outsiders to the policy process to understand what forces are really affecting neutrality. While many of the Cold War constraints on neutrality disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union, new ones have evolved to replace them. There is no discounting the fact that neutrality was originally considered a foreign policy tool, designed to minimize Austrian participation in future conflicts; however, it quickly evolved into much more. By 1956, it was an integral part of Austrian security and defense policy, as well as an instrument for constructing a uniquely Austrian identity removed from a "Germanic" one. In addition to having restored independence and national sovereignty, neutrality also secured domestic stability in the form of Consociational Democracy. In the hands of Austria's determined leadership, elements of consociationalism were adapted to form the Social Partnership, Corporatism, and Proporz, which created a unique form of "domestic neutrality", where conflict was to be avoided at all cost.
Given the fact of moral disagreement, theories of state neutrality which rely on moral premises will have limited application, in that they will fail to motivate anyone who rejects the moral premises on which they are based. By contrast, contractarian theories can be consistent with moral scepticism, and can therefore avoid this limitation. In this paper, I construct a contractarian model which I claim is sceptically consistent and includes a principle of state neutrality as a necessary condition. The principle of neutrality which I derive incorporates two conceptions of neutrality (consequential neutrality and justificatory neutrality) which have usually been thought of as distinct and incompatible. I argue that contractarianism gives us a unified account of these conceptions. Ultimately, the conclusion that neutrality can be derived without violating the constraint established by moral scepticism turns out to rely on an assumption of equal precontractual bargaining power. I do not attempt to defend this assumption here. If the assumption cannot be defended in a sceptically consistent fashion, then the argument for neutrality given here is claimed to be morally minimal, rather than fully consistent with moral scepticism. ; L'existence d'un désaccord sur les questions morales fait en sorte que les constructions théoriques de la neutralité de l'État se fondant sur des prémisses morales ne peuvent avoir qu'une application limitée, car elles échouent à motiver quiconque rejette ces prémisses fondatrices. Par opposition, les théories contractualistes peuvent s'accommoder d'un scepticisme moral et peuvent donc éviter cette limitation. Cet article développe un modèle contractualiste compatible avec le scepticisme et qui inclut comme condition nécessaire la neutralité de l'État. Le principe de neutralité que je dérive à partir de ce modèle incorpore deux conceptions de la neutralité, soit la neutralité des conséquences et la neutralité de la justification. Ces deux conceptions sont souvent considérées comme étant ...
