2 Neutrality, Neutralization, Non-Alignment and Neutralism

The four concepts' distinctions (the syllabus's dedicated comparison — the Nepali quartet, since Nepal's own history touches all four): 1. Neutrality (strict sense): the ad hoc wartime status above — a legal position in a particular conflict (Switzerland in the World Wars), ending with the war; 2. Neutralization (permanent neutrality): the treaty-constituted status — a state permanently neutralized by international guarantee: no wars of its own except defence; no alliances, bases, or memberships compromising neutrality — Switzerland (1815, Vienna Congress's recognition; the UN-membership-with-reservations practice), Austria (1955's constitutional declaration; the Soviet-era exit condition), Belgium/Luxembourg (the 19th- century's guaranteed neutralizations, undone by war), Laos (1962's doomed Geneva neutralization). Nepal's Zone of Peace proposal (1975) — the attempted self-neutralization (IRD Unit 4's history: endorsed by 100+ states, never by India, lapsing unadopted) — neutralization's South Asian chapter; 3. Non-alignment: the peacetime policy of the Cold War's NAM family — refusing bloc membership (no military alliance with either superpower camp) while remaining active in world politics (the exact opposite of neutrality's passivity: non-alignment's diplomacy, peacekeeping and mediation — Nepal a founding participant, 1961); non-alignment as ideology and movement, not legal status — no inviolability rights against belligerents; 4. Neutralism: the attitude/ideology — the disposition (of states or citizens) toward non- involvement and equidistance — the term's Cold-War usage for the position short of formal…