Sir, – The Consultative Forum on International Security Policy gave rise to useful and important discussions of key issues and it is clear that some of the concepts and terminology we use when discussing our neutrality stem from the past and need to be reconsidered.
What we might consider the extent of the State’s sovereignty today, and what is external to this, are no longer the same as in previous times. The Hague Convention respecting the rights and duties of neutral powers dates from 1907, while our policy of neutrality developed around the Second world war. It is also over 35 years since the Crotty judgment regarding foreign policy and external relations in an EU context.
Since then, we, with our EU partners, have created a European currency that is integral to our State, EU citizenship and joint infrastructure such as the single market, the area of freedom, security and justice and electricity interconnectors with our neighbours that are essential to the functioning of our society and economy.
An attack against any of these would have profound implications for the wellbeing of everyone living on this island. Surely Ireland could not be indifferent, or neutral, in the case of threats to the EU we, and other European states, have built together?
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There is a general consensus that as a neutral State we have a right to defend ourselves. The question we must ask however, is who are “we”? – Yours, etc,
DAVID GEARY,
Limerick.
Sir, – It would be useful to take a more global approach in the debate about Ireland’s neutrality rather than the “binary”, western-focused one described by Prof Andrew Cottey (“Neutrality debate: Assuming Ireland’s national security policy is morally superior is self-delusional”, Opinion & Analysis, June 24th).
Russia’s war in Ukraine caused many developing countries to break with the West and insist on neutrality, refusing to take sides.
For this, they faced intense criticism, with accusations that abstention means support for the invasion.
However, neutrality can be a principled position, as well as an astute tactical engagement with geopolitical realities. Ireland’s approach can be viewed not as moral weakness, but as a constructive policy, along the lines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), that does not represent weakness nor passivity. In the words of two founding figures in the NAM, Yugoslavia’s then-president Josip Broz Tito and India’s then-president Jawaharlal Nehru: “It represents the positive, active and constructive policy that, as its goal, has collective peace as the foundation of collective security”.
In the Global South, there is currently a renewed focus on policy autonomy and the principles of non-alignment.
There is an urgent need to reject dividing the world along “cold war” acrimonious lines, and to focus on ensuring respect for human rights and international law in all countries, which is currently far from the case. – Yours, etc,
DOROTHY MORRISSEY,
Wexford.